Vitantonio Liuzzi has admitted that he could find himself without a
Formula One drive next season, as the prevarication over
Scuderia Toro Rosso's line-up continues.
Speaking to Italian magazine
Autosprint over the New Year, Liuzzi revealed that his contract stipulates involvement in the top flight next season, but hinted that he need not be handed a race seat. Although team boss Gerhard Berger earlier suggested that STR would field an unchanged pairing of Liuzzi and
Scott Speed this year, recent events have led to the Austrian admitting that that may not now be the case.
"My contract specifies driving in
F1 but, with
Red Bull, you never know," Liuzzi commented, mindful of the fact that he received less race miles than he expected during the infamous seat-sharing arrangement at Red Bull Racing in 2005, "I think I did well this season, but my future is not up to me."
The appearance of Champ Car champion
Sebastien Bourdais during the last test of 2006 at
Jerez set tongues wagging in the paddock and, even if the Frenchman was not directly in the hunt for a ride this year, there is a lengthy list of other candidates being put forward for one or both seats at
STR.
Berger insisted that Bourdais' outing was nothing more than an evaluation, after the Frenchman had been shunned by F1 in spite of his US success. Bourdais also revealed that he had a binding contract with Newman/Haas Racing for the coming season, warning STR that it would more than likely have to buy him out of his Champ Car commitments should it decide to run him. Liuzzi, however, was unperturbed by the Frenchman's appearance, even though he ended the test just a matter of hundredths faster.
"The test was carried out in a fair way, with no favouritism, but Bourdais probably thought he would get here and humble everyone," the Italian said, "In actual fact, I was faster over the two days that we ran together - and the gap would have been wider had I not had a traction control problem."
