Ralf To Leave Toyota

Ralf Schumacher announced his departure from the Panasonic Toyota F1 team following the conclusion of the 2007 season. The German declared his intentions via his personal website today.

Schumacher spent the last three seasons in an uphill battle of development at the Japanese team after leaving Williams in 2005.

Speculation of Toyota's plans to renew Schumacher's contract have swirled all season and his departure means the team have narrowed the field of likely candidates.

Rumors link several drivers to the open seat including recently crowned GP2 champion Timo Glock and rookie Spyker youngster Adrian Sutil.

Ralf will announce his plans for 2008 following the final race of the season at Interlagos, Brazil.

Spyker Update

Despite driving the slowest car in the field, Spyker F1's Adrian Sutil looks set to have a secure future for at least one more year. Spyker announced that it hopes to retain the young German for 2008, but it swings on the availability of other rides on pitlane and his own commitment to the Spyker team.

Sutil still has time to wait for potential rides forward in the field. Williams have yet to corfirm the status of Alexander Wurz who has under-performed his much younger teammate, Nico Rosberg. Japenese financial powerhouse Toyota have a seat in question. 32 year old Ralf Shumacher hopes to keep his job after an up and down season and questionable mega-salary. If Ralf gets a ride in '08 expect it to come at a big paycut.

Get off the pot!

After 11 rounds of the 2007 Formula 1 season, front runners McLaren and Ferrari are battling to the end with non-stop development hoping to get every tenth of a second from their cars.

BMW have a firm grip on 3rd place in the constructors standings. For everyone else the time has come to decide on the proper course of action for the remainder of the season.

Some teams may continue to develop their cars for a final push at the end. Toyota have slowly improved this season and hope to build upon their 12 points. More points equals more sponsor and television money for 2008.

Other teams will likely decide to conclude further major improvements of their challengers for 07 and begin to focus solely upon their 2008 machinery.

Renault have disclosed their intentions to shift their focus to next year.

One must start to assume that Honda, though not yet openly, have ditched their plans for improving the dismal 2007 car and begun work on recalibrating their wind tunnel for work on the 2008 machine.

Lookout for Spyker F1 this week as they debut their b-spec car in an attempt to close the gap to the back of the pack.