John, you may be right...if he had four offers in his hand from those guys, Dieter may have had to cough up quite a few more Euro's.
The BBC has claimed that four teams - Ferrari, McLaren, Toyota and Brawn - all made offers to Sebastian Vettel before the German committed to Red Bull.
According to pit-lane reporter Ted Kravtiz, the four teams were willing to reserve a race-seat for Vettel for 2011 before he agreed to extend his deal with Red Bull.
If true, the story would suggest that reports that Ferrari have a binding deal with Fernando Alonso may be premature, that Toyota are still planning a long-term residence in F1 and that, with Rubens Barrichello and Heikki Kovalainen set to be dropped at the end of the season, both McLaren and Brawn were willing to appoint one-year seat-fillers for the 2010 campaign alongside Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button respectively.