According to MTV3 :


When asked if Kovalainen would intrest Toyota for the season 2010 Howett answered "I don't say no".

So he's either quoted wrong or the wind is moving his lips.

Howett's managing to come across as the biggest knob in F1. Maybe he saw the vacuum left by Briatore and decided it was a role for him? Please Timo, find another team.

There is a possibility that Hulkenburg, Glock, Rosberg, Heidfeld, Sutil and Vettel will all be on the grid next year. That's 6 German drivers. I can't see that happening.

Is nationality so important for you? They're drivers and nothing else

Why? All 6 are more than worthy of an F1 drive.

Toyota is to stupid to feel sorry for.

The significance of the 6 is that any team will not likely hire 2 of the same nationality, thus eliminating some chances for the ones that do not have a drive at this point.

This quality of decision-making at Toyota is quite Monty-esque. "Sorry about the driving skill thing everyone, we're still sulking you see, that rejection brought us right down "

Exactly, so Timo is being treated like shit "if we don't get anyone else we might as well keep Timo". Whereas if someone deares to say no to Toyota (Let's be honest, who in their right mind wouldn't prefer McLaren over Toyota) they are immediately banned?

Well, I got news for Toyota: honor works both ways. Currently Toyota is nothing more than some primadonnas who cry when they don't get what they want but show no respect to people who have served them for 2 years.

So much for Japanese honor. Toyota

Howett become Japanese?

Howett can afford to act like a jerk because it's 'only' Kovalainen. If Alonso/Räikkönen/Kubica etc. came begging for a drive, Toyota would have little trouble overlooking all the previous times they'd shown no interest...

Doesn't make it right or classy, though.

No, but he is talking for them. He is THE team and company representative in F1.

Two faced as well as primadonnas. Wouldn't suprise me.

Well Toyota IS a Japanese company.
And saving face is one of their cultural behaviors. Even if it comes at expense of making right or logical decision (this is the Western thinking for ya).
In this light his comments would make sense.

Mika has a way with words.

"If you look at the performances of Lewis and Heikki, you have to look not only at the black and white race results, but also what happens in the background," said Hakkinen.

Sounds like Mika would like to steal Heikki from Flavio's gang...
But seriously, he might (pure speculation) be Kovalainen's next manager, and therefore would have a reason to praise Kovalainen.

by reading more and more from toyota and howett, i start to like the idea of trulli retiring, kimi going into rallye, glock to renault, heidfeld to mclaren and kova to whatever becomes sauber... or whatever, just that toyota are left with an inferior lineup to what they currently got in trulli/glock.

Mika is just Finnish Heikki fanboy. He didn't like Kimi's decision to join Ferrari...

Nope. It's just his opinion, not Toyota or whatever. AFAIK Toyota always has terrific relationships with their pilots. Even with Ralf. So what I heard last time from Howett convinced it's completely his own initiative. Perhaps he will be fired in the end of the season, it could explain his behavior, also still some concerns about Toyota future in F1 play role. And BTW Trulli had direct agreement about further relationship with Tadashi Yamashina, above Howett head, so made conclusion by yourself.

Come on, think of what you are saying.

Mika should just start his own F1 team. Surely, he'd be able to gather the funds to do so.

Personally, I just think Howett is an incompetent jerk who overcompensates with arrogance.

... and I'll be surprised if he'll still be around next year.

Rosberg confirms he will leave Williams

Hardly any news but...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79812

Now if only he'd say where he's going...

Andy Soucek has said that he's very close to get a place in F1 for 2010, how many drivers are already "very close"?? We may need 100 cars on the grid

With this Kimi saga rumbling on i wouldn't be surprised if Nico goes to McLaren, German , good mates with Lewis and quick, seems a perfect fit.

Roberg's old man isn't too keen though is he? But then, who listens to their parents when they're 24 eh?

Why are people still not convinced that Rosberg has signed for Brawn?

Because people will question EVERYTHING on these forums until they "hear it from the horses mouth"

Which isnt exactly a bad thing leads to lots of intresting debaits!

http://www.motorsport-magazin.com/formel1/...te-cockpit.html

Senna at Campos. Deal done.

FIA wants the winner of F2 to be in F1 to give good image to the championship, so for me he will be at the grid for shoo

After that stunt he pulled with Coloni in Belgium, Andy Soucek is a high-risk proposition, especially if he's paying. Moreso than Piquet; Piquet had something to gain from his actions, but Soucek never would have gotten anything out of Coloni. And I should think any team principal would recognise that risk

You're probably right but yesterday he was very confident about his options, when he was asked about F1 he said "Well, I had a special surprise for you today but it's not yet signed so I should wait a little bit more..."

Bet nothing comes of it.

Soucek might have dominated in F2, but he's more experienced than everyone else in the field. If he's signed on with a team, he's probably a test driver. If he's got a race seat, it's probably with a new team. There's no way he's going to walk into a top team.

Glock is likely to announce he's signed to Renault for next season according to several German publications.

Renault is lucky bastasrd. 2 strong drivers.

Speculation:

Heidfeld could be a good fit for Toyota really. Known quantity, consistent and reasonably fast.

Toyota can't get (top) current F1 drivers, so they need to try junior drivers to get the next superstar for cheap, however the best GP2 driver yet to debut in F1 is locked in with Williams. Therefore bring in Grosjean for the second car... only a few tenths off a 2xWDC in rookie races, can't be such a bad driver. He might be the next Massa... the speed is there, it just needs to be refined and number of crashing reduced.

Toyota - Heidfeld/Grosjean > (just) Kovalainen/Kobayashi

Good pair for Renault, much more better than past seasons, probably strongest one since they had Trulli and Alonso together during 2003-04, now they don't need to produce another dog and get it right like the old times

That is really interesting.

I thought Renault would go for Heidfeld over Glock for Renault.

So Grosjean's F1 career appears to be over after half a season, poor lad.

I think Toyota will give one seat to Kobayashi, they've never had a Japanese driver.

The other will go to the biggest name they can get, like Raikkonen.

Failing that, they'll keep Trulli.

Yeah, everyone knew this was coming.

I don't want to sound like someone with an ax to grind against Rosberg, but he's really not impressing me at all. He's had four years to really put together a truly electric performance to show that he's an outstanding talent, and the fact is that he hasn't. He had his chance to do it at Singapore, and he blew it with the worst error of the year from any driver. He's spent years griping about the car, but he hasn't really done anything to show he's outstanding. He's shown that he's good, yes, but F1 is full of good drivers.

Going further back into the past, he never did anything in the lower formulas or carts to show that he was the best of that class. Hamilton and Kubica both whooped him through the ranks; yeah, Rosberg got Hamilton in 2004 in F3, but that's because Hamilton was a rookie that season in F3 with a first-year F3 team while Rosberg was experienced. Even then, Rosberg only beat him really on account of the first event of the year, which was Rosberg's best weekend; Hamilton beat him over the rest of the season.

But if Rosberg wants to get with one of the top-flight teams, now will be the best chance he will ever have in his career. If he stayed at Williams next year and faced Hulkenberg, a younger driver who most would probably rate as more talented and as projecting higher than him, he would face the real chance of getting beaten, which would crush his reputation. He is also on the market at a time when a German manufacturer is desperate to have a German driver representing them, and he's available at a time when a superior current F1 driver- Vettel- isn't.

The stars really aligned for Rosberg. He better get the job done, and quickly, or he won't be around at the top for very long.

Toyota want to win races, not drive around in the points.

Kimi almost confirms the McLaren deal to Finnish MTV3. He says McLaren was always the only option and no discussions with Toyota took place. All should be clear "in a few days", according to Kimi.

And they've done an exceptional job of winning races since 2002...

Glock is a solid guy for Renault to have. He's got excellent race pace, and if he just gets his qualifying down, he will be a consistent producer.

I wouldn't say Grosjean is done just yet. He was torched by the lack of testing. He needs to go back to GP2 and do a lot of work. His driving style is WAY too ragged, and he needs to just be humble and willing to work hard to improve. Glock is a great demonstration case that it's possible for a driver to get dumped from F1 and make it back with hard work.

It really looks like Kobayashi will be Toyota's man next year.

Toyota has no shot at signing Raikkonen. Period.

They'll only keep Trulli if they fire Howett, which I pray to God they do.

That's somewhat at odds with the fact that Toyota said they offered him a contract. And I gather MTV3 is about as reliable as AS and La Marca ...


That's why I said "they want to win races" as opposed to "they want to keep winning races". Subtle-but-important difference right there.

What have I been saying all along?

I've been saying all along that John Howett just made up the Raikkonen stuff in an attempt to save his job. Then he made up the crap about Raikkonen being "too expensive" to deflect responsibility from himself for failing to sign him. It's the same deal with his blaming the drivers for the team's failure this year: to avoid accountability for the team's failure under his leadership and blame other in an attempt to save his job.

I want to start a thread on just how incompetent and arrogant John Howett is. He's the most despicable man involved in any of the teams in F1. God, I feel like launching a crusade against him until the truth is known to all! ;)

Sorry, chief, but MTV3 is a news station that actually talks to F1 personnel. They interviewed Raikkonen directly. AS and La Marca are just rags.

John Howett probably did offer him a contract. But that doesn't mean negotiations took place. Raikkonen probably rejected them from the very beginning, and as I stated in my previous post, Howett just made the whole thing up to make it look like he was doing something in light of the fact he's probably close to losing his job.

I don't think he made it all up - it's probable that Toyota and Kimi's management have sent some kind of preliminary proposals to each other onto which they would then base the actual negotiations. They just didn't get any further than that.

no what u ''gather'' is wrong..MTV3 may wrongly speculate a lot about other things but alongside TS,its the only news source that kimi talks directly too...

what theyve put up are kimi's own exact words..