While Michael Schumacher continues to cold shoulder the prospect of a Formula One comeback with the Mercedes team, another former world champion is working himself into a sweat over a return to the cockpit.

Jacques Villeneuve has revealed he is undergoing an intensive programme of physical exercise designed to get him back into tip-top shape for next season. And the 38-year-old Canadian is now in pole position to help revive one of the greatest names in Grand Prix racing, Lotus.

It is 15 years since Lotus, who were once able to field talents of the stature of Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Ayrton Senna, last lined up on the starting grid.

It is also over three years since Villeneuve, world champion in 1997 with Williams, made his own ignominious exit from Formula One when he was replaced at BMW Sauber by Polish newcomer Robert Kubica.

Villeneuve, former fiance of Dannii Minogue, appeared to have lost the X Factor that had made him such a formidable competitor in the mould of his father, the great Gilles Villeneuve who was killed during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982.

But after dallying with Le Mans sports car racing, American NASCAR saloons, and even a brief attempt to make it as a pop star, Villeneuve has been attracted back to F1 by new regulations that place more of a premium on driving skills than technical trickery, and by the thought of re-establishing Lotus as podium contenders.

He has already visited the Norfolk headquarters of the new Lotus team, who are being financed by Malaysian money. And that brought back happy childhood memories.

Villeneuve, one of only three men to have won the triple crown of Formula One world championship, the Indy 500 race and the IndyCar title, explained: "My first toy car as a child was a replica model of Emerson Fittipaldi's Lotus 72. I could say his name before I could say my dad's!" Of sealing a drive with Lotus, possibly alongside Italy's Jarno Trulli, he would only say: "The discussions are still preliminary."

Yet Villeneuve, 38, who has also been linked with the new US F1 team, is leaving nothing to chance. In case an offer does come his way, he has submitted himself to a gruelling fitness regime with his former trainer Dr Erwin Gollner, an Austria-based motorsport specialist whose clientele has also included Damon Hill and Nico Rosberg.

Villeneuve described Gollner's brand of intensive strength and resistance training as "really, really brutal".

He went on: "After warming up, the programme lasts 100 minutes and the longest pause is five seconds. Fortunately, Erwin hasn't sent me training in the sauna yet." That will come. It just proves how serious Villeneuve is about competing again. He said: "Do you think I would come to suffer, in a retreat, leaving my two sons far away, if I didn't believe things are moving along well?"

Acclaimed designer Mike Gascoyne, currently hard at work on the new Lotus car, has been in on the talks with Villeneuve. "It's nice that we're getting interest from experienced people," he said. "We've got a great heritage that we've got to live up to."

An announcement on the Lotus line-up for 2010 is expected within the next fortnight. The FIA last night published a team entry list for next year's world championship that confirmed Lotus have been granted a place in the pit lane. The FIA's list also revealed that the new Manor team will be entered as Virgin Racing. Sir Richard Branson's company this year sponsored Brawn GP's double championship-winning cars of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. But while a formal announcement has yet to be made by the businessman, it is understood Branson has transferred his allegiance, and his money, to Manor for whom Germany's Timo Glock has already signed as lead driver.

The list of challengers for 2010 also confirmed that the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, who pushed Button so close towards the end of the 2009 title chase, will be again be powered by Renault engines.

This suggests that Renault, whose commitment to Formula One was in doubt following the Crashgate scandal that forced Flavio Briatore to quit as team principal, will at least carry on supplying engines next year.