Heidfeld willing to stay on at BMW team

The Hinwil based squad is still on the market after BMW announced in late July that it was pulling out of Formula 1, although if it is rescued it would still be in competition with other potential new entrants for the 13th slot in the field.

But despite its poor 2009 season and its current uncertain state, Heidfeld remains confident in the team's potential.

"For me it would be definitely an option as I think the team should stay very similar to what it is now," he said.

"It would be important if the finances were good enough to keep most of the people there, because the performance has been good, apart from the beginning of this year. And now hopefully it's going up again, so I believe that the team could be strong again in the future.

"But there's actually not much going on at the moment because nobody knows if or who will be there, so there's nobody to speak to."

Heidfeld admitted that events like the Renault scandal had thrown the driver market into further confusion.

"They are ongoing, but at the moment nothing that can be said or written," he replied when asked how negotiations for 2010 seats were progressing.

"It was already quite difficult to know exactly what's going on everywhere, and it's become even more crazy now with Renault, not knowing what's going to happen there, if [Nelson] Piquet did it on purpose, if and how is he going to be penalised, and if you imagine there were talks with Renault pulling out, that would not make the position a lot better."

But he ruled out chasing a drive at one of the three new teams to be awarded an F1 entry for 2010.

"No, I'm not speaking to new teams," said Heidfeld. "I try to follow what they do a bit and get an idea of the situation, because obviously there are also rumours that some teams are not doing a lot and maybe will not be on the grid next year, don't have a lot of money, and whatever.

"So it's something interesting, something to follow, but there are no teams there I'm talking to at the moment, simply because I don't expect them to be at the front of the grid in the near future. It's impossible."