Speculation has increased that Toyota may be about to enter Formula One racing. Rivals Honda have already announced their return to the sport, and the president of Toyota Motor Corporation, Hiroshi Okuda, fuelled the debate yesterday with comments to reporters at a Tokyo hotel when asked if the company was thinking of building its own circuit to enter racing.

"I cannot say there is no possibility of that in the future," he said.

But a Toyota spokesman said: "Nothing has been decided."

Okuda spoke a week after Toyota announced that pre-tax profits rose 17 per cent to 828.7 billion yen (£4.6 billion) in the year to March.

In March, Honda announced it would return to Formula One with its own car and team for the first time in 30 years.

At Monza yesterday, world champion Jacques Villeneuve split the dominant McLarens in Formula One testing. The Canadian, driving a modified version of his Williams race car, had a best lap of one minute 25.11 seconds, less than 0.3 of a second slower than David Coulthard.

World championship leader Mika Hakkinen managed 1:25.83.

Meanwhile, speculation that Michael Schumacher would join the McLaren-Mercedes team next year was dismissed as "absolute nonsense" by the chairman of Daimler-Benz.

Juergen Schrempp said at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Stuttgart that the team already had two "very successful" drivers in Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

"They are getting better all the time. They are both, moreover, very likeable people," he said. "It is thus absolute nonsense to discuss making any changes in our drivers."

After six races in this year's 16race calendar, the 29-year-old Finn Hakkinen has a healthy lead in the world championship with 46 points, ahead of Coulthard's 29 and Schumacher's 24.

German media have speculated in recent weeks that ex-world champion Schumacher, who drives for Ferrari, would join McLaren next year.