BRITISH Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert may have opened the door to a belated Formula One chance for North-East racing star Warren Hughes, writes Nigel Burton.

Herbert has quit the sport after a lacklustre season with the Jaguar team to carve out a new career in America's Champ Car racing.

His decision could leave the way open for Sunderland ace Hughes, enjoying something of an Indian summer to his career after a sensational year racing F3000 cars.

Hughes narrowly missed out clinching the Italian Formula 3000 Championship at the Misano circuit in Italy at the weekend.

Hughes finished second behind championship leader Ricardo Sperifico and secured the runners-up spot in the series.

The weekend had begun badly for Hughes with his car handling badly and struggling to find grip in the only practice session before qualifying on Saturday afternoon. He found himself well down the classification in 15th place, one and a half seconds behind his championship rival. A lot of hard work and thinking would be required by Hughes and his Arden Team Russia engineers and mechanics before qualifying to keep the championship within his grasp.

And the work paid off, Hughes pulled back the deficit in qualifying to under half a second and fourth place on the grid.

Feeling a lot more confident for the race, Hughes knew exactly what was required - he had to beat Sperifico to clinch the championship.

Yet another flying start art the green light rocketed Hughes into second place behind his big rival with team mate Darren Manning slotting in behind in third.

For the whole 24 lap race Hughes pushed relentlessly (netting him fastest lap in the race) to try and force the leader into a mistake that would allow him to snatch the lead away but Sperifico held on to take the race and the championship from Hughes.

Hughes' points, together with those of team-mate Darren Manning, have won Arden Team Russia the team's championship, which has given them another entry into next year's FA International F3000 Championship.

Team principal Christian Horner hailed Hughes efforts, saying: "Warren's done a fantastic job for us this year, he's a great asset to this team and we would very much like to keep him on board for next season, but we will both need to do a lot of hard work over the winter to secure the necessary budget to race in the European series."

A delighted Hughes said: "I've proved myself at this level now I'm ready to move up again.

"This season I've put myself back in the shop window. There is a lot more interest in me than there was a year ago. I'm still working closely with the Williams F1 test team and I'm hoping something can develop there, but my main hope is that the financial package can be put together that will allow me to race in the International Formula 3000 Championship next year.