Jarno Trulli's hopes of remaining with the Toyota F1 team into 2010 have taken a fairly steep nosedive after the Toyota F1 president John Howett delivered a fairly scathing review of the Italian's time with the Japanese team to date.
Trulli has been with the Toyota team since joining from Renault in 2005, but the team remains winless and under pressure to perform, meaning that Trulli seems to finally be falling out of favour with the powers that be within the boringly-liveried ones.
Trulli has yet to be offered a contract for 2010 with the team, and Toyota are known to have made approaches for both Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen's services in 2010, though both of those names look set to opt for alternative offers.
And despite Trulli's experience of driving "a bit, but not very, quick" behind the wheel, Howett does not seem in a hurry to keep the Italian happy in the foreseeable future, pointing out that the driver had chances to win races recently but had failed to follow through to the end of the weekend.
"You have to look over five years," Howett sniffed, "I don't wish to be tough but we had a more competitive position leading the start of Spa, and we didn't deliver.
"So I think you have to respect the fact - and I am not trying to knock Jarno, because he is a great person and what he does for the earthquake victims... there are so many strong qualities.
"But still unfortunately as a team this sport is intensely competitive and we have to find the best opportunity to win."
Howett did concede that Trulli's recent podium performance in Japan, where he finished second behind Sebastian Vettel to pick up his third podium of the season, would reflect well on the team's final decision on whether to keep him, but said that the odd good result was not really the issue.
"It always helps, doesn't it? But I can't say that it is really the fundamental issue," he said of the podium finish.
"I think it is still all down to Toyota's overall profit and loss situation and the image of Formula 1 and whether we can get away from the rather sordid side that we've had recently to a much more dynamic future looking at all the great things that this sport really has.
"Talking to my colleagues, it's a similar problem everywhere. That's the biggest challenge we face."
Meanwhile, Trulli himself has moved to dismiss reports that his upcoming NASCAR test was a precursor to him joining the American series for 2010, insisting that the whole thing was merely a bit of fun, and that "my commitment is 100 per cent to F1."
Just maybe not 100 per cent to Toyota.
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