Jarno Trulli has revealed he once turned down the opportunity to drive for Ferrari.
Trulli's Formula 1 career would appear to be at an end after he was dropped by Caterham with the Tony Fernandes-backed team opting to sign Vitaly Petrov for the 2012 season, but things could have been very different had he accepted an offer to join Ferrari under Jean Todt.
Current Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali has spoken of his sadness that the Italian will not be on the grid for 2012 but Trulli himself has revealed he once had the chance to drive the famous red livery, but his loyalty to Toyota propelled him to turn down the offer.
"Nobody knows this, but at this point I think I can publicly thank Jean Todt for having been one of the few top team managers to consider me during my career. No one knows this, but Todt offered me a seat at Ferrari," Trulli was quoted as saying by Autosprint.
"I won't tell you when exactly: I was racing for Toyota and I was doing very well. But I had signed a rather long contract with the Japanese, and in my career I've always honoured my commitments. In 15 years of F1 I've never needed lawyers.
"I thank Todt not only for having offered me a drive at Ferrari, a chance that unfortunately I couldn't accept, but also for every time I asked for advice and received fine indications with a friendly approach.
"He has always been very honest with me. I've always kept this thing for me, but since today it's thanking time, I've felt like doing that. Regardless how things went, for a moment I felt I was a Ferrari driver."
Trulli joined Toyota at the end of the 2004 season and remained with the team until 2009 before he moved to Lotus.