There are many who feel we have never had the opportunity of seeing the full potential of Tonio Liuzzi, and with the prospect of Sebastien Bourdais being signed for 2008, it is likely that the Italian will either have to move elsewhere, outside F1, or resign himself to a year or two as F1 test driver in the hope that he will receive an Alex Wurz type call up.

Faced with the prospect of losing his F1 drive, the Italian insists that there is still hope in F1, he is also of the opinion that the decision to dump Scott Speed, and indeed himself, was no spur of the moment thing.

"I don't know if it's true," he told F1GrandPrix.it, when asked about reports that Bourdais will be confirmed as Sebastian Vettel's teammate at Toro Rosso for 2008. "However, I knew this possibility and I'm negotiating with other teams, so it's not a big change for me."

Liuzzi believes that the decision to fire Scott Speed was not entirely due to performance, and feels he could be in line for similar treatment.

"Their policy was quite particular," he said, "and they decided this policy already before the beginning of the season. I don't think they were convinced we would be half a second slower than Red Bull. I think there was something else behind it, because they were pushing on us already at the end of last season. It was quite clear, that's why I decided to look elsewhere and the same with Scott. Now we are at this point.

"It has been for sure a difficult season, because we were expecting more from the car," he admits. "From our expectations, this should be a car able to fight for the points at every race, instead it showed not to be reliable, fast and up to the development. This made everything more difficult.

"Then the atmosphere inside the team wasn't the best one, because many times the drivers were accused unfairly, to hide the problems of the car. But the team is allowed to manage this as they like. They improved a lot from the Minardi times, they keep improving, but to become a winning team there is still a long way to go."

Despite the praise heaped on Vettel following his maiden F1 appearance, at Indianapolis, Liuzzi was not overly impressed by the German in Hungary.

"I think he did nothing special. Maybe they thought they will put him in the car and he would be half a second faster than me, instead it was quite clear it was the contrary. Vettel is obviously a rookie, but he raced in Indianapolis and he did lots of miles in BMW, more than the mileage we did at Toro Rosso. I don't think his was a great debut, but of course he can improve a lot here."

Following the success of Robert Doornbos in ChampCar, Liuzzi might be best served by cutting his (F1) losses and heading out west, F1 certainly hasn't made use of his undoubted talents.