MOTORSPORT: Toyota's F1 future on the line

Report that 'strategic withdrawal' is imminent
Japanese tyre manufacturer Bridgestone's notice this week that it will bow out of Formula One at the end of next season heightens attention on Toyota's future in the world's premier motor racing series.

A Toyota F1 announcement is now expected this Sunday, November 8 -- a week earlier than had been anticipated.

Clarification by Toyota of its F1 intentions had been due immediately after the company's board meeting in Tokyo on November 15.

However, Germany's Auto Motor und Sport magazine has revealed that it will come a week earlier.

And London's Independent newspaper has reported that it could be "bad news" from the giant car manufacturer, tipping a "strategic withdrawal".

Tokyo's Mainichi newspaper is now suggesting much the same.

Toyota has been in F1 eight years without winning a grand prix.

It was fifth in this year's constructors' world championship.

Toyota made its F1 debut in Melbourne on the same day in 2002 that Australian driver Mark Webber began with Minardi -- and Webber has finally broken through this year with two GP victories.

Tatsuya Mizuno, a motor industry analyst at Mizuno Credit Advisory in Japan, said this week: "Japanese auto and auto parts makers are questioning what they (Toyota) can gain now by spending hundreds of millions of yen in taking part in F1."

Honda quit the sport a year ago, handing Ross Brawn a team he transformed -- with the substitution of a Mercedes-Benz engine -- into a world-beater.

Hot on the heels of Honda's pullout, as car sales plummeted in the global financial crisis, Subaru and Suzuki quit the World Rally Championship - and Kawasaki withdrew from the MotoGP series.

There were indications early this year that Toyota's F1 team, based at Cologne in Germany, would be folded if it did not win a GP in the season that ended in Abu Dhabi last Sunday.

The closest it came was second place -- by German driver Timo Glock at the Singapore GP in September and again by Italian Jarno Trulli a week later in the Japanese GP at the Honda-owned Suzuka circuit.

Toyota-owned Fuji circuit several months ago gave up its right to host the Japanese GP on rotation with Suzuka.

Toyota's agreement to supply engines to the Williams F1 team expired at Abu Dhabi.

While there is plenty of speculation that Toyota, at the top level, is disenchanted with F1 and its inability to succeed in it, there also have been some indications it will continue.

It is believed to have offered 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen a contract for next year -- which the Finn's management reportedly rejected on the grounds it did not reflect what they see as his worth, even though he has already been paid for next season by Ferrari as it released him to make way for Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso.

There also has been great excitement about the speed of Japanese rookie driver Kamui Kobayashi in his two GP starts in place of the injured Glock, including a sixth-place finish in Abu Dhabi.

However, Kobayashi has mentioned that he may be back working in his father's sushi restaurant soon if Toyota pulls the plug on F1.

Trulli and Glock were told weeks ago that they were unlikely to be required next year and that they were free to look around for alternative drives.

Toyota is signed up to the new Concorde Agreement that will rule F1's commercial dealings until 2012, but so was BMW -- which is now out.

If Toyota withdraws as a fully-fledged F1 constructor it could remain as an engine supplier, if it wants -- especially as not as many teams as want (including Red Bull Racing) can get hold of the Mercedes power plant.

And there could be a surprise twist if Mercedes drops McLaren in favour of Brawn as its favoured -- and de facto factory -- team.

Might McLaren suddenly be left looking for an engine source -- and Toyota be its best option?

Even only serious option, unless BMW was prepared to supply it.

Meanwhile, Bridgestone's F1 pullout at the end of next year leaves the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) to find a replacement tyre supplier.

Bridgestone's decision, soon after news it is closing its Adelaide and Christchurch, New Zealand, tyre plants with the loss of almost 900 jobs, is not purely a result of the global financial crisis.

"We are looking more to where tyre demand needs to be focused," spokesman Kaoru Tomizawa said.

"There has been a change of direction towards further developing areas of the business where demand is greatest and which support the company's aims."

Motorsport director Hiroshi Yasukawa said: "The decision comes after considerable and lengthy evaluations and has been based on the company's need to redirect its resources towards further intensive development of innovative technologies."

Bridgestone has been in F1 since 1997 and has been the sole rubber supplier since 2007 after Michelin withdrew at the end of '06.

Goodyear quit F1 in 1998.

Next year will be the third and last of Bridgestone's contract as the monopoly supplier.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that it has been spending US$70 million a year developing, producing and distributing its F1 tyres.

With four new teams next year it faces a big increase on that figure in its final season, with little prospect of a commensurate increase in exposure or other value.

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