Kimi Raikkonen has said that his aspirations of a drive for the 2010 season extend as far as driving for the McLaren team and no further, sparing Toyota the difficulty of finding a spare $40 million or so to pay for him to drive for them.
Raikkonen has been dumped by Ferrari after this season in order to make way for future possible champion Fernando Alonso, but although he has attracted interest from Toyota, the Finn has said that McLaren would be the only team he'd consider racing for next year.
"Toyota has not even been discussed," Raikkonen dismissively mumbled to Finnish television station MTV3. "If I want to drive [F1] cars, then McLaren in the only option. I should know the situation in the next few days."
Raikkonen has seemed largely bored with F1 since around mid-2008, and suggested in the press briefing at Abu Dhabi, ahead of his final race for Ferrari, that his future may well not lie in Formula One.
"Basically I have a few different options and we will see what is the best one overall and then make my decision," he claimed.
He enjoyed a run on the Rally Finland this year, and when asked if his future was in rally cars instead of F1, he said: "It is definitely one of them, but I mean it is not just Formula 1 and rallying. There are other things I could do and we will see what happens."
He even entertained the possibility of taking a sabbatical in 2010, presumably waiting for Alonso to ruin Ferrari's team morale a la McLaren 2007 and taking the chance to rejoin the team for 2011.
"I can [take a sabbatical] if I want," Raikkonen mumbled, "I can do whatever I want, but like I said before, I haven't made my decision what I want to do yet."
Toyota's hopes for a top-line driver for 2010 now look slim. Kamui Kobayashi, who has deputised for the injured Timo Glock in Brazil and again this weekend in Abu Dhabi, is set for one seat, but both of their current drivers, Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock, are set to leave, and their efforts to sign first Robert Kubica and now Raikkonen seem to have failed.
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