Bourdais to test with Toro Rosso.

Sebastian Bourdais will get a belated chance to try a Formula One car, having been offered the chance to test with Scuderia Toro Rosso during this week's final group session of 2006.

Much has been made of the Frenchman's lack of F1 opportunities, a situation made to look slightly ridiculous by his steam-rollering of the Champ Car series over the past three years, adding further weight to Toro Rosso's offer. Bourdais will join the Faenza-based team, now run by Gerhard Berger and Franz Tost, during the team's three-day test at Jerez de la Frontera over 13-15 December.

Although Toro Rosso's brief statement claims that the test outing has been endorsed by the Newman Haas team 'with whom Bourdais wants to defend his Champ Car title in 2007', conspiracy theorists will enjoy talking up Bourdais' chances of finally making the move to the top flight.

Although Berger has hinted at an unchanged line-up for Toro Rosso's second season, the team has yet to issue an official confirmation that Tonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed will be at the wheel of its 2007 cars - another subject dogging the Italian-based Red Bull-backed outfit. Berger also spent the end of the 2006 campaign making less than encouraging noises about the number of mistakes made by his inexperienced pairing, leading to speculation that Speed could be off-loaded back to the United States.

Initial gossip suggested that Red Bull Racing reserve Robert Doornbos would be a shoo-in for the American, but Berger has denied this. RBR has yet to confirm that Doornbos - who ended the season standing in for the deposed Christian Klien - will play back-up to David Coulthard and Mark Webber in 2007, leaving the possibility of a switch to STR just that, but Bourdais' test has come out of the blue, suggesting that there may be something more to the offer.

Doubters can't even point to the Frenchman's lack of Red Bull credentials as a reason why he can't be signed, as Webber has been drafted into the RBR fold having not been backed by the drinks brand in the past.

The test won't be Bourdais first in F1, having been offered outings by both Arrows and Renault in the wake of his 2002 FIA F3000 title success. The Frenchman was even offered a race seat by Tom Walkinshaw for the following season. Unfortunately, the financial situation at Leafield was not good and the chance passed Bourdais by. With the Renault F1 test coming to nought, amid rumours claiming that Bourdais had fallen out with Flavio Briatore, he headed to Champ Car.