Reserve Wickens may get more than he bargained for at Virgin

Wickens, 22, is reportedly backed by the Yorkshire team’s Russian sponsor and shareholder Marussia and drives in the Formula Renault 3.5 series.

There is a space on the team after Sakon Yamamoto’s short contract as test driver expired.

But it is the future of second driver D’Ambrosio of Belgium that is under the biggest cloud after reports emerged ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix that his sponsors had fallen short of their promised financial backing.

One of the reasons D’Ambrosio, 25, was hired was that he brought more money to the Dinnington-based team than the departing Lucas di Grassi. But with money tight in comparison to their rivals, every penny counts for a team that is at the back of the grid striving to close the gap on their rivals and meet the targets set by their Russian paymasters of reaching the second session of qualifying.

D’Ambrosio has three finishes from four but other than a statement earlier this week backing the rookie as long as his contract was fulfilled, Virgin have yet to come out with anything more definitive.

“Jerome has done a fantastic job in the first four races of his debut season in Formula 1,” the statement read.

“As with any driver agreement with the team, as long as the terms of the contract are fulfilled, it would be our intention to continue with Jerome.”

Ahead of this weekend’s fifth grand prix of the season, Virgin have been camped in Spain testing their new downforce package.

Team principal John Booth said: “We go to Barcelona optimistic that we can continue to make another step forward.

“We had a positive aero test at Idiada last weekend, which we hope will help us extract more from our upgrade package at the Circuit de Catalunya.

“The fact that this circuit is a known quantity and we have a lot of data from 2010 and the two pre-season tests to work with means that we have a good knowledge base from which to set the car up.”

Fernando Alonso yesterday pledged his long-term future to Ferrari by extending his contract through to the end of 2016.

Alonso said: “I am very happy to have reached this agreement. Ferrari feels to me like a second family.”