After admitting yesterday it was "unlikely" that de Ferran Dragon Racing would continue following its parting of ways with Tony Kanaan, Gil de Ferran has confirmed that the IndyCar team has closed down.
De Ferran Dragon was unable to find sufficient funding to go ahead with running Andretti Autosport refugee Tony Kanaan this year as planned, and team co-owner de Ferran acknowledged in an interview with SPEED.com that there was no possibility of continuing with an alternative driver.
"We worked hard to fund this thing and tried everything we could but, at the end of the day, we just couldn't raise enough funds to do it properly," de Ferran said. "It's a shame because we kept our full crew through the winter, did a lot of R&D and I was confident we had a good season ahead of us.
"Believe me, we looked at every scenario available, half a season, Indy, some races near the end but I couldn't build a case for it."
De Ferran added that it was too early to speculate about whether he would be able to revive the team in the future.
"Speaking personally, I love auto racing it's always been my life and I love Indy cars," he said. "But I'm not going to make any immediate decisions about the future."
The two-time CART champion and 2003 Indy 500 winner initially created his team to run an Acura prototype in the American Le Mans Series in 2008, before switching to IndyCar last year when the operation merged with Jay Penske and Steve Luczo's Luczo Dragon team. The re-branded de Ferran Dragon organization ran Raphael Matos, with two fourth places in Sao Paulo and at Watkins Glen the year's highlights.