Third Failure Raises Doubts About Yoong's Future

Malaysian Alex Yoong's days as a Formula One driver could be numbered after he failed to qualify for Sunday's German Grand Prix.

The 26-year-old has missed the cut for three of the 12 races so far this season and Minardi boss Paul Stoddart admitted on Saturday that he was baffled by the latest failure.

"He's lost his confidence. There's no reason for that today," he said of Yoong clocking a time some two seconds slower than Australian team mate Mark Webber. Race stewards once again said there were no special circumstances to allow him to compete.

"He doesn't know why, we don't know why. Technically we can't find a reason. He just didn't do it. He just simply didn't do it," said Stoddart.

The team owner said he would sit down and discuss the situation with Yoong, who became Malaysia's first Formula One driver last September, and hinted that he might have to be replaced.

One possible scenario would be for Yoong to drop back into a testing role with the team to help him rebuild his confidence.

"If Alex were to say to me 'I can't find the reason but I'm struggling to qualify' then clearly we've got to make a decision," said Stoddart. "And that decision could in the extreme be that for a couple of races we replace him and we cram in some testing."

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Yoong brings important sponsorship to a cash-starved team but has looked out of his depth since his debut at last year's Italian Grand Prix at Monza and invariably trails around at the back of the field.

"To be frank, I'm as puzzled as everyone else why we were so slow today," said the Malaysian.

Stoddart said the money was not dependant on Yoong, who failed to qualify at Imola in Italy in April and at Silverstone this month, remaining in the driving seat.

"Contractually when Alex didn't qualify at Imola I could have done it (replaced him) there and then and said 'right, that's it.' But I'm not like that," he said.

"I do want to give people a chance and I'm proud of the fact that we brought in the first Malaysian driver. He might not be Michael Schumacher but there's a lot of countries that have never had a Formula One driver and never will.

"Malaysia should be proud of Alex's effort, I'm proud of it. He's done a lot to be in Formula One but something's clearly gone wrong."

After Yoong failed to make the grade at Silverstone, Stoddart said that the team had anticipated he would struggle because of the lack of power steering on his car and did not hold it against him.

But he warned at the time that subsequent failure might be harder to take.

"At Silverstone we knew what it was, there was no decision to make and everything was fine. But it isn't fine today," he said. "I'm not going to make any decisions. People have already asked me about his future and I've said that any decision made today would be made in haste so no decision is going to be made.

"We've got a three-week break, there's plenty of time to think about what we're going to do," he added.

"I owe it to Alex to sit down and talk to him and not make any decisions before I've talked to him because clearly something's not quite gelling there at the moment and I need to find the reasons."