Toyota expected a win from either Timo Glock or Jarno Trulli in 2009, but the best thing they got was a few podiums and a pole position. In the final stages of the season, however, the Cologne based team managed to up their game and constantly challenge for podiums, with Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi taking over from injured Glock.
According to a report coming from Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, the meeting between Toyota's board of directors may be held from as soon as October 8 – not 15, as initially announced – and the news resulting from it may not be all good. Although expected to approve a new budget for their 2010 operations, the board of directors may decide to pull the plug on the Cologne team.
“(Japanese) auto and auto-part makers are questioning what they can gain now by spending hundreds of millions of yen in taking part in Formula One," said Tatsuya Mizuno, an auto analyst at Mizuno Credit Advisory, as reported by the GMM news agency.
Another report that surfaced in the media in recent weeks, via Toyota's race driver Jarno Trulli, was that the F1 team has put both the Italian and Timo Glock on hold for the 2010 contract until mid-November. Although initially believed to be ousted by Toyota, the two drivers were reportedly handed new offers, only depending on the outcome of the November meeting (aforementioned).
Should the Japanese manufacturer decide not to continue in Formula One, that would actually mean good news for Peter Sauber, the Swiss co-owner of BMW Sauber. The Qadbak-backed team has been looking for a 14th entry in the 2010 championship for quite some time, and their only chance of making it to the next year's grid would be for a current F1 team to pull out from the series.
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