Another Dutchman eyes Champ Car

UPDATE #2 Similar to Nicky Pastorelli, Jordan's other test driver, Doornbos will have plenty of time on his hands to also drive in Champ Car, if he can find the necessary sponsorship. The Midland-Jordan team doesn't have the money to do a lot of testing, so between Pastorelli and Doornbos, their other test driver, and their two regular drivers, the testing time commitment for each is minimal. 02/18/05 This Dutch article reiterates that Doornbos feels Champ Car is a viable option for him in 2005. We are hearing that with so many drivers looking at Champ Car now, 20 cars is quite possible for '05. The two extra cars are likely to be a 3rd car at PKV Racing (recall they bought all of Fernandez Racing's Lolas) and a 2nd car for Walker Racing. 02/07/05 Dutchman Robert Doornbos was left stunned last week when Jordan announced that Tiago Monteiro and Narain Karthikeyan would race for the Toyota powered team in 2005 as he had been in lengthy talks with the team for a race seat. “When the news reached me on Thursday morning, I was completely overwhelmed by it," Doornbos admitted. "In the last few months, my management team went flat out to secure me a race drive by the team, and last week we actually had all the necessary ingredients together to finalize the deal. Though the final decision was of course with the team, I was always pretty confident to be on the grid in Melbourne."

“Now Kolles and Carlin decided to choose for Karthikeyan and Monteiro, we have to go for Plan B," Doornbos continued. "At this moment I want to keep focused on F1 for 2005. In the last couple of days I’ve also received several offers out of other series, but my feeling says to stick to F1 for the moment." There are zero seats left in F1 so he can forget that notion. On Friday Doornbos returned to the Netherlands to examine four unspecified options for the 2005 season. It remains to be seen what is the Dutchman's Plan B, but Champ Car is one of them.