With the turmoil of teams quitting Formula One or changing ownership dying down, it’s time to return to the fight for seats: who’s driving what in 2010?
It’s just over a month since I posted about the start of “silly season” but a lot has changed, most notable Jenson Button joining McLaren. [BBC]
So here’s the current state of play:
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BrawnMercedes Grand Prix: Nico Rosberg and probably Nick Heidfeld (or maybe Timo Glock). - Campos: Bruno Senna is confirmed but the second seat is still up for grabs.
- Ferrari: Kimi Raikkonen has been replaced by Fernando Alonso; everyone hopes Felipe Massa will be fit to return.
- Force India: Adrian Sutil will probably stay, and maybe Vitantonio Liuzzi will keep Giancarlo Fisichella’s place, but nothing’s certain yet. (There’s also the possibility of Ferrari lending GF when he’s not needed as their test driver.)
- McLaren: Lewis Hamilton is staying put and now Jenson Button has been confirmed as his team mate.
- Red Bull: Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are confirmed for 2010.
- Renault: Robert Kubica and potentially Romain Grosjean although it could be Vitaly Petrov if Renault sell a portion of the team to Russian investors, as is rumoured.
- Toro Rosso: Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari are expected to stay at STR.
- Lotus F1: no news.
- Manor: Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi [BBC] (Same article also says “Although the deal has not been confirmed, Manor are expected to be sponsored by Virgin, and be re-named Virgin F1.”)
- US F1: no-one confirmed yet.
- Williams: Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hülkenberg (their test driver in 2009).
- BMW Sauber: assuming they are allowed back in to F1! They’re going to have problems securing drivers until they know they’re going to be on the grid.
Who’s missing? Toyota have withdrawn from F1 and Kimi Raikkonen is off to rallying [BBC] because no-one could (or was willing to) afford him.
So there are still quite a few seats available – I’ll post updates here as I find them.
If you want to see how much the drivers were paid, check out http://www.silverstone.co.uk/news/latest-news/How-much-were-F1-drivers-paid-in-2009/