Formula One testing for this season is still two weeks away but already Australian Mark Webber is battling reports this will be his last year with Red Bull Racing.

Speculation has been circulating that former Ferrari world champion Kimi Raikkonen will return in 2011 to usurp Webber’s seat.

Raikkonen, who had a disinterested year with the Italian team in 2009 and subsequently left F1, plans to compete in this season’s World Rally championship.

But it has been reported that the enigmatic Finn is merely taking a 12-month sabbatical and will return to drive alongside young German Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull.

Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko has dismissed the reports as “pure rumour.”

Disenchanted with F1, Raikkonen has secured Red Bull sponsorship to run in the WRC series this season at the wheel of a works Citroen C4.

It has been speculated that the 30-year-old Finn’s deal is a way for him to return to Formula One in place of Webber in 2011.

“That is a pure rumour,” Marko told the Austrian sports website laola1.at.

“Raikkonen is going to drive the rallies in 2010, and what happens after that, we will see.”

Webber has wrapped up his most successful season at the elite level, breaking through for wins in the German and Brazilian grands prix in 2009.

Red Bull in the process became a serious championship contender and took “a massive step forward”, team principal Christian Horner said.

He admitted Webber had been hampered by his injuries from a cycling accident early in the season which had prevented him performing at peak ability early on.

“I think Mark would have to admit that (the injuries) for sure did compromise him slightly early on, certainly in pre-season testing and I think probably also in the first couple of races,” Horner told crash.net.

“But he quickly got on top of it and his recuperation was excellent. By the time we got back to Europe, he drove some excellent races in Barcelona, Istanbul, Monaco and Silverstone.

Meanwhile, the The Tribune de Grande Instance was due to decide on Tuesday the outcome of disgraced ex-Renault team bosses Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds’ legal bid to overturn their bans from motor racing.

The Paris court heard the case, instigated by former team principal Briatore, who was banned by the FIA for life over the so-called crashgate scandal, and supported by the team’s engineering director Symonds who was banned for five years, in November.

As well as the annulment of his ban, which would likely safeguard his role with the English football club Queens Park Rangers, the 59-year-old Briatore is seeking 1 million euros ($A1.58 million) in damages.

© AAP 2012

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