McNish confident of bagging Toyota seat

The 31-year-old McNish, who became the American Le Mans Series champion in Adelaide on New Year's Eve, has secured a test drive with Toyota as the Japanese marque prepares to enter Formula 1 next year.

"I'm going to make sure I give 100 per cent to testing this year," said McNish, "because there is a seat on the grid at the end of it if everything goes to plan. I've tested for McLaren and Benetton before, so I know what it's like to drive an F1 car. My desire is purely and simply to race in Formula 1 and Toyota knows that."

McNish will share the testing duties with former Sauber and Ferrari driver Mika Salo, who has turned his back on racing this year in favour of a race seat with Toyota in 2002. The second seat is still vacant, but McNish believes Salo's reputation in F1 will help him convince Toyota top brass the drive should be his.

"I've got a very good benchmark with Mika because of how well he did with Ferrari in 1999 and with Sauber," said McNish. "I've faired well against him before and I'm sure I can do it again."

The drive with Toyota is a second chance at F1 for McNish, and baulks the current trend of young drivers entering motorsport's premier category. The Scotsman is older than current world champion Michael Schumacher, but believes the older drivers still have a lot to offer.

"I said [Jenson] Button was a year early last year and got that wrong," he said, "so with [Kimi] Raikkonen I'm going to sit on the fence. He's young and it's important he develops in the right way and learns to deal with the pressure. There's more to being a good driver than just driving as quickly as possible from lights to flag."

Toyota's all-new V10 was fired up on a dyno for the first time at the team's HQ in Germany last September, but the marque's F1 challenger has yet to turn a wheel. McNish is expected to hit the track some time in March.