APRIL 6, 2007

Heidfeld and Toyota?

The 2008 silly season has not really begun as yet but it is not far away as the teams begin to understand their level of performance in 2007 and look for ways to improve the situation. There has been talk for a while about the possibility of Marco Andretti moving in to partner Jenson Button at Honda F1 and now comes a whisper from Germany that Ralf Schumacher might be moved out at Toyota to make way for his compatriot Nick Heidfeld.

Heidfeld is currently happily ensconsed at BMW and doing a good job but there is no doubt that BMW is also looking seriously at promoting Sebastian Vettel in the longer term. Down at Toyota Ralf has options to go on for several more years but the team is clearly in need of some changes if it wants to break into the big time and it is easy to imagine that Toyota executives might think that a part of this is having inspired leadership from the drivers.

Whether Heidfeld is the man to do that is another question but Ralf and Jarno Trulli have been trying for several years and nothing much has changed.