Piquet Jr. to Minardi

Nelson Piquet Jr was lurking around Minardi for most of Thursday in Monte Carlo and team sources say that the Brazilian, who is currently racing in GP2 wants to try to break into F1 next year. Minardi will probably have seats available as team boss Paul Stoddart makes no bones about the fact that he will take the drivers who have the money he needs to keep the team running in 2006. The word on the street is that the going rate for a Minardi drive in 2006 is around $6m, depending on the Euro-dollar exchange rate at any given moment. Grandprix.com