AUGUST 30, 2002

Salo goes out to pasture

Mika Salo will be paid next year's salary by Toyota and goes into retirement a happy (and wealthy) man as a result. The Finn always said that he would retire at the end of the Toyota deal and he has now confirmed that this will be his course of action now that Toyota has decided to drop him in order to make way for someone else.

Salo confirmed that he was getting "reasonable compensation" for the cancellation of the final year of his contract.

Toyota has tried hard to make it clear that there is no criticism of the drivers that they have been dropped by the team (a difficult task to achieve!) and is arguing that it was simply a question of a need for new ideas.