Villeneuve looking at his options

The 1997 World Champion has been linked to drives at Renault and Toyota for 2004, and has been critical of BAR-Honda recently having suffered a spate of retirements. The Canadian has driven for the team since 1998 and has in the past indicated that his patience is running thin while he waits for it to become competitive. But he said that should a desireable drive, at BAR or elsewhere not a materialise, he may be forced to reconsider his situation.

"You have to see what your options are," said Villeneuve. "If you have to drive in another team or stay at home, then you might change your perspective."

Speaking about the current top three teams, he added: "I have never said that I wouldn't drive with Michael Schumacher at Ferrari but I wouldn't drive in Rubens' position, where you basically can't have anything. McLaren has two number ones and that works out fine.

"I don't want to wait until I'm 50 to be competitive. The BAR has made a huge step forward and we've closed the gap to Ferrari a lot. But the way the season has been going, the car keeps breaking. Or mine does. Just stupid little mechanical things, but they take you out of the race just the same as a suspension failure. The only thing that could be worse here is if the car keeps going and I go off. I just hope the monkey will jump off my back."

Villeneuve is the second highest paid F1 driver behind Michael Schumacher but is expected to have to take a salary drop when his lucrative current three-year deal runs out. "The teams will do everything they can to bring down your value and your management will do everything they can to up it. That's just the market..." he said.