Kobayashi will keep aggressive style

The Japanese driver impressed with his racing ability when he made his debut with Toyota in place of the injured Timo Glock at the end of 2009. He was involved in tough wheel to wheel dices with world champion in both Brazil and Abu Dhabi, successfully overtaking the Brawn driver in the latter event.

At the time he had only a limited opportunity to impress as his 2010 plans were not secure, but Kobayashi pledged to remain a hard charger now that he was established as a full-time F1 driver.

"I don't think it is something special for me, it's just my style," he said at the launch of the Sauber C29 today. "I will keep like this, of course without crashing. It is my style and I won't change."

He is confident he will be in better shape in 2010 as he has been able to prepare for F1 from the start of winter testing rather than being called up at the last minute.

"We come in to this season having enough time to prepare for it," Kobayashi said. "The last two races [last year] I had no testing, so it was really difficult, but now I have so many tests and we can work with the car from the beginning of the season."

He also revealed that he had been discussing a deal with Renault before signing for Sauber.

"I don't know everything because I am not the manager, but at the last moment we were thinking it was between Renault and here," he said.

"And this was the last opportunity, and finally we decided here. But I don't whether the other one was serious or not, there was some contact of course with more teams."

Kobayashi was unwilling to make predictions for his 2010 season with testing yet to begin, but said his ambition was to become Japan's first grand prix winner.

"I will try to be the first Japanese driver to win, this is my ultimate goal," he said. "But at the moment it is too far away to think about that and I am just focused on my tests now."