SUPERBIKE ace Neil Hodgson is facing world championship heartache unless his team can find new funds.

The GSE team has been rocked by the loss of sponsorship support from internet company INS.

And that means the privately funded Ducati team will have to find £1 million before launching their campaign.

One option is for team owner Darrell Healey to plunder his own finances.

He said: "We are pretty disappointed to be in this situation, but we still have some negotiations with other sponsors before the start of the season.

"Losing INS as a sponsor was unfortunate as they have been with us for the past two years, but we have to move on from this."

And GSE team boss Colin Wright added: "There will not be any shortcuts made by the team despite this situation."

Hodgson, the British champion from Burnley, and his team-mate Jamie Toseland were due to take part in the first unofficial testing session at Kyalami this weekend.

Meanwhile, Carl Fogarty is recovering after having an exploratory operation on his injured shoulder.

The keyhole surgery revealed that the bone was healing well and there was no damage to the shoulder's rotator cuff.

Some tissue scarring was cut away by surgeon Prof Andy Carr.

Fogarty said: "They were really happy -- the plates and pins can stay there for the rest of my life and the bone is healing well."