Floersch took part in the official pre-season tests at the Red Bull Ring and Misano with the Dutch squad, but is struggling to find a budget to compete in F3.

The 17-year old already had to miss next week’s opening round at Pau, as she has a school exam on the Friday, when free practice and qualifying for the first race take place.

She is therefore working towards joining the series for the second round at the Hungaroring at the beginning of June.

Team boss Frits van Amersfoort told Motorsport.com: “All parties around Sophia are fighting to find a proper budget – it’s not looking good but we haven’t given up yet.

“From testing, I would love to have her in the team – she made good progress on track, she loves racing and she’s up for a joke, so she would be a very good influence in the team.

“Also she is willing to learn, and she’s physically strong and that’s a big plus in racing. But we’re facing a budget gap – it’s so tight at the moment that we can’t even start.”

VAR has only two of its Mercedes-powered Dallaras filled, with Russian Artem Petrov – a race winner in Italian and German F4 last season – joining second-year F3 racer Keyvan Andres.

Before Floersch joined the team for testing, VAR had held out hope of running Dutch F4 graduate Leonard Hoogenboom, who drove in the pre-Christmas test programme only to switch his focus to LMP3 in the Le Mans Cup.

“We’re doing everything we can to pick up a third driver – our whole set-up now is for three cars,” said van Amersfoort.