It is understood that Durango - the Italian racing outfit founded in 1980 by Ivone Pinton and Enrico Magro is involved in Jacques Villeneuve's bid to secure a place on the 2011 grid.

Following Villeneuve's own confirmation yesterday that he is applying to enter a team next season, Pinton has told 422race.com that Durango is involved in a joint venture with the Canadian.

"Jacques is an energetic and willing guy," he said. "I really hope together we will find a place. For Durango, to work with him is an honour and a privilege: we are talking about the son of a legend and a former world champion. I have know him since he was 16 and I always said that, whenever he's ok, he's a great driver, who won in every series.

"We still don't know where the car would be built," he admitted, "but the home of the team will be ours, in Italy.

"As for Jacques' role, together with being driver, I'm sure he will actively contribute to the team. I think he's preparing himself the job to do after he quits driving."

Over the years, Durango has contested numerous series, most notably F3000 and its successor GP2, however, there have also been forays into Le Mans, European and Italian Formula Renault 2000 and GT Racing.

In 2009 due to financial problems the team missed the final two rounds of the main GP2 series and subsequently failed to enter the 2009/2010 GP2 Asia series for the same reason.

The Italian outfit is currently third in the Auto GP series - which uses first generation A1 Grand Prix car - its Brazilian driver, Carlos Iaconelli currently fifth, 8 points behind championship leader Edoardo Piscopo of DAMS.