2010 Lineups (so far)

[maximilian]

Kubica may huff and puff about the Renault takeover, but the fact is, he has NO other option, really... Sauber hiring Kobayashi pretty much closed that door for him, unless the Schumacher thing really doesn't happen. Otherwise it's presumably Heidfeld in that seat. So Kubica really has nowhere else to go...

I am "afraid" Tung may get the second Renault seat.... urgh!

[Copse]

Toro Rosso would probably rush another rookie into F1 in exchange of Alguersuari - maybe Ricciardo?

Reading the Ricciardo thread, he has made it clear that he is not going to F1, not even GP2 this year. For his sake, I hope the people running the Red Bull young drivers programme respect that, and welcome his decision to stay out of the pool of sharks until he is experienced enough. Too many have been pushed too high, too fast by Red Bull, only to be ousted when their lack of experience showed. It'd be great if he could show them that working your way up the ranks will eventually make you a better F1-driver. Hopefully, they'll have the patience to keep supporting him.

[Stuartf12007]

i cant beleive every new team has overlooked Adam Carrol the guy is blisteringly fast, drives on the limit all the time and knows how to overtake.

[jens]

GPUpdate writes that Baguette is 96% sure of a Sauber race seat for next year. If true, it would be a bit surprising, because Peter has so far claimed he'd like an experienced driver alongside a youngster for 2010. Have financial issues forced to take a new approach? And if true, Heidfeld could be in trouble to find a drive for next year. Amus.de has written that arguably Heidfeld had an offer from Lotus, but he wanted to wait after Mercedes, so they had to go for Kovalainen in the end.

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As for Carroll, I really don't know, why has this guy suddenly started to get hyped. : If you are talking about British drivers, who could really impress in F1, take a look at di Resta and Green, who have won Euro F3 and especially the latter one did it in dominant style back in '04. Carroll hasn't shown anything special to be considered as a "must" in F1. A1GP line-up wasn't that great either last season to prove anything.

[DazzlaF1]

GPUpdate writes that Baguette is 96% sure of a
As for Carroll, I really don't know, why has this guy suddenly started to get hyped. : If you are talking about British drivers, who could really impress in F1, take a look at di Resta and Green, who have won Euro F3 and especially the latter one did it in dominant style back in '04. Carroll hasn't shown anything special to be considered as a "must" in F1. A1GP line-up wasn't that great either last season to prove anything.

Id add Davidson to that list too, despite scoring no points at Super Aguri, he performed admirably, that quali lap at Turkey 2007 getting a year old car onto 11th on the grid is one of the best laps I have ever seen.

[jens]

Id add Davidson to that list too, despite scoring no points at Super Aguri, he performed admirably, that quali lap at Turkey 2007 getting a year old car onto 11th on the grid is one of the best laps I have ever seen.

I'd put Davidson into the same category as Carroll - decent, but that's about it. Those two guys get too much hype compared to several other similarly-levelled drivers like Montagny, Pantano, Jani, Premat, etc, who no-one cares about.

[maximilian]

I also don't understand that persistent Davidson hype. He was a quick tester, but he never finished a race in the top-10, and I see no real reason to keep considering him for race seats when there are plenty of other talents out there. Like so many others, he's had his chance to make a mark, and didn't quite cut the mustard (a la Klien, Sato, Bourdais, Piquet, maybe even Grosjean, Alguersuari... you could argue in favor of all those, but the fact remains, they didn't quite pull it off - unlike Kobayashi, for example... he made an impact in just 2 races and turned some heads, despite being woefully underprepared) - and in this competitive field, you don't get too many chances.

[maximilian]

So what's the latest now?...

McLAREN: 1. Button, 2. Hamilton (Paffet)
MERCEDES: 3. Rosberg, 4. M. Schumacher (Conway?)
RED BULL: 5. Vettel, 6. Webber (Ricciardo)
FERRARI: 7. Alonso, 8. Massa (Fisichella)
WILLIAMS: 9. Barrichello, 10. Hülkenberg (Soucek?)
RENAULT: 11. Kubica, 12. D'Ambrosio? Villeneuve? Tung? R. Schumacher?
FORCE INDIA: 14. Sutil, 15. Liuzzi (di Resta)
TORO ROSSO: 16. Buemi, 17. Alguersuari? Fisichella? R. Schumacher?
LOTUS: 18. Trulli, 19. Kovalainen (Fauzy)
CAMPOS META: 20. Piquet, 21. Senna (Petrov?)
USF1: 22. Bourdais? Wurz? Klien? R. Schumacher? Villeneuve?, 23. Lopez
VIRGIN: 24. Glock, 25. di Grassi (Parente)
SAUBER: 26. Heidfeld, 27. Kobayashi (Baguette)
STEFAN GP: Pavlovic? and ???

[jens]

The odd thing is that there is a slight possibility Heidfeld might be left without drive for next year. :\ It's unclear, how sensitive is Sauber's financial situation and Renault's second seat is a total mystery. Maybe someone like d'Ambrosio will end up there. Those Ralf Schumacher rumours have come totally out of the blue, but then again his brother's return showed that anything can happen. : Imagine if Nick ends up at Sauber and Ralf at Renault - this means we would have 8 (!) Germans in F1 next year.

[maximilian]

The odd thing is that there is a slight possibility Heidfeld might be left without drive for next year. :\

It's a very real possibility, although I would be really shocked if he doesn't drive the second Sauber. Ecclestone talking about Klien in that seat was just a bunch of hogwash he told the Austrian media, so they'd write about it while he's on skiing vacation there. As much as I'd like to see Klien in that seat, *I* wouldn't even hire him over Heidfeld!

I don't really see Ralf making it back, unless it's with USF1 or StefanGP (perhaps "testing" in 2010 if StGP doesn't get in, while racing the DTM at the same time). If anyone GOOD wanted to hire him, they would have already done so in the years past.