Besides Paffet McLaren/Mercedes got Paul di Resta as one of their test driver, if i'm not mistaken.

Doesn't matter. He can't drive until the end of the season anyway.

I seem to recall a certain John Hogan telling Ferrari to hire one Edmund Irvine back in 1995 - that would be John Hogan of Marlboro.


Big sponsors can make even the biggest teams dance to their tune.

And that was fourteen years ago, back when Maranello was trapped in an age that would only ever seem them as second-best since 1983. They'd been languishing in the early 1990s in particular, and it wasn't until 1999 that they won a constructors' titile again. Besides, they'd just invested a lot in Schumacher, and were probably at a loss as to who to partner him with. For all I know, Hogan told Ferrari to hire Irvine as a recommendation, not as an order.

Are Toyota serious about keeping Trulli?
Do they intend to drop Glock for any upcomming youngster?

In a way, I still view Glock as an upcoming youngster, even though he's 27 years old. He's only got 31 races under his belt, and I think he's got quite a lot of years in him. Plus, I remember reading somewhere that Toyota took up Glock's option for 2009 and beyond.

As has been speculated in recent weeks, Pedro de la Rosa has now penned a two-year contract to race with the new Campos team beginning next season, the Spanish newspaper Diario AS reports.

The 38-year-old McLaren test driver's deal will reportedly be unveiled by the Spanish outfit at the European grand prix at Valencia next month.

Barcelona local de la Rosa, who has 72 grands prix under his belt but not a single F1 race since 2006, is to be perhaps joined at the Spanish team by Bruno Senna or the Mexican Sergio Perez, who drove for Campos in the recent GP2 Asia series.

Perez, 19, is also backed by Telmex, the telecommunications giant.

Interesting news, SchuOz. So De la Rosa will be in F1 at 40 — it's been a long time since we had a 40-year-old in the sport.

39

I meant when he's at the end of his 2-year deal... but he will actually be 41, then.

41, that is unusual when was the last time we had this? Patrese? Mansell?

Mansell 1995: 41 years old

but before that?

No, he will be 40.

De la Rosa will leave McLaren but he's apparently in touch with USF1 as well (in addition to Campos). Nice to hear Windsor has dropped the idiotical 'All-American lineup', and is ready to consider qualified drivers of any nationality. This is what Pedro told Turun Sanomat after Nürburgring:
"The Fact is the days for test drivers are gone in F1. No such job exists any longer. There's no point in being a test driver if there's no testing.
- -
USF1 are interested and they are a team you should take seriously. Campos looks interesting as well, building their car together with Dallara. There are no contracts at the moment, just some talk with both of the teams."

Kovalainen is likely to stay, but the deal is not going to be finalised any time soon.

You're right. According to his Wikipedia profile, De la Rosa was born on 24 February 1971, so if he signs a deal with Campos for 2010-2011, he'll turn 40 prior to the latter season.

McMerc needs to drop Kovalainen. He is clearly not good enough even as a 2nd driver.

Yes, I would be happy if they dropp the only American lineup plan,
not that there are not any drivers good enough.. it's just not F1-wise.

But where did you hear that?

^

TS

It is quite a strong sign of the fact they may not necessarily sign an all American lineup if they are in talks with Pedro de la Rosa. Unless he becomes US citizen, of course.

I think that, at most, US-F1 and Campos will only take one person from the Home Team. Super Aguri proved that the Japanese All-Stars approach doesn't work; you simply cannot get the best possible lineup if you limit your driver choice based on geography. It's noice to have a diverse range of drivers in terms of their nationality, but a Formula One team needs the best lineup it can have. While two American drivers/two Spanish drivers/two Japanse drivers/two Indian drivers is something to aspire to, it's onyl really going to happen if the driver market reflects it.

^Well said!

SCUDERIA FERRARI MARLBORO
- Massa
- Alonso
RENAULT F1 TEAM
- Grosjean
- Piquet
PANASONIC TOYOTA RACING
- Trulli
- Nakajima
BMW SAUBER F1 TEAM
- Kubica
- Rosberg
VODAFONE McLAREN MERCEDES
- Hamilton
- Glock
AT&T WILLIAMS TOYOTA
- Hulkenburg
- Heidfeld
BRAWN GP FORMULA ONE TEAM MERCEDES
- Button
- Raikkonen
RED BULL RACING RENAULT/BMW/FERRARI
- Vettel
- Webber
SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO RENAULT/BMW/FERARRI
- Buemi
- Alguersuari
FORCE INDIA F1 TEAM MERCEDES
- Sutil
- Fisico
CAMPOS META TEAM COSWORTH
- De la Rosa
- Petrov
MANOR GRAND PRIX COSWORTH
- Davidson
- Paffett
TEAM US F1 COSWORTH
- Speed
- Bourdais

id switch kovi with piquet in that. but otherwise id say thats a likely grid. maybe switch glock and rosberg but thatd be a personal preference.

Brawn
Jenson Button
Kimi Räikkönen (Would love to see that!! Maybe Heidfeld and Kovalainen have chances too, IF they give Rubinho the boot)

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber

Toyota
Jarno Trulli
Timo Glock

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (or Räikkönen)
Felipe Massa

Williams
Heikki Kovalainen (Hülkenberg and Barrichello could also be possible)
Kazuki Nakajima

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton
Nico Rosberg

Renault
Rubens Barrichello (a wild guess and I don't think it's possible. dunno which driver could be in this cockpit, if Alonso joins Ferrari. maybe Senna or Di Grassi?? Two Rookies?? No!!)
Romain Grosjean

BMW (IMHO I wouldn't let go one of these drivers, as I am convinced that both drivers give their best out there in this car. As Dr. Theissen I wouldn't think twice and keep them)
Robert Kubica
Nick Heidfeld

Toro Rosso
Sébastien Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari (IF he convinces everyone, if not Senna, Piquet or Pantano are possible either)

Force India
Adrian Sutil
Vitantonio Liuzzi

Manor
Adam Carroll (I know, two Rookies are not very likely. Maybe Barrichello comes along with Virgin or they root for Anthony Davidson)
Bruno Senna

Campos Meta
Pedro De la Rosa
Vitaly Petrov (Pantano, Senna, Di Grassi. Everything is possible, maybe even Alguersuari if he fails at STR. Repsol brings money!!)

USF1
Sebastien Bourdais (Still popular in US!!)
Lucas Di Grassi (Wild Guess. But somehow I can't imagine that Scott Speed returns or someone like Summerton or Antinucci appear without much testing.)

Not if Flav has anything to say about it. He won't want to run a rookie and a near-rookie.


Brawn will do anything to keep Button, but they can't afford Kimi even for a third of what he's being paid right now.


I don't see that happening, either. Not unles Windsor and Anderson are closet masochists. They've invested years and probably hundred of millions of dolalrs in establishing the team, so they're not going to go giving the drives to two of the most under-performing drivers the sport has seen in recent years.

If Fisichella or Barrichello is available he/they would have to take one/both of the USF1 drives surely?

Better to have at least one veteran within 2-5 tenths of superstar pace, than 2 rookies with unknown pace... as Alonso or Raikkonen are unlikely to be joining USF1!

Well, yeah; my line has always been that USF1 will end up with an American rookie and a highly-expeirenced driver. Given the way his relationship seems to be going with Brawn, I wouldn't be surprused if Barrichello moves to Windsor's team.

Latest rumours still putting Rosberg as the german of choice to be installed at McLaren. Could all be BS.

One of the USF1 seats should go to Speed. He's running horrible in NASCAR and needs to salvage his racing career. He's a good open wheel driver with experiece. He didn't do a worse job than any other redbull/toro rosso driver bar Vettel.

The other seat should go to AJ Allmendinger - he is young, talented and is interested in F1.

There's your two American drivers.
Another option would be Rubens but just for one year to help them develop the car.

This is BS. Rosberg is not WDC material and Kovalainen is for sure better than him.

Mclaren's bet must be keeping Lewis and having Vettel onboard as Alonso is going to Ferrari.

Campos has now denied that they have closed the deal with Pedro de la Rosa..

Vettel isn't available for 2010 though, Dietrich doesn't need the money and Seb isn't going to jump out of that RBR car voluntarily. I think Heikki has been improving and had some decent races this year, but still I think Mac want to try someone new to score points more often. If it has to be a German then I'd rate Rosberg over Glock I think. Though maybe in a better car Sutil would stop making so many mistakes, I think he has more talent than them, and than Heidfeld too.

Say what now? HK eh, i'd have him in my car ahead of Fisichella, Nakajima, the two STR boys and .. well .. that's it. So he's what, the 16th best peddler of thwe 20 on the grid IMHO.

It's better to keep Heikki for 2010 on a lower salary than pay a whole bunch of money for Rosberg to take him from Frank, and then have Vettel for 2011 and beyond.

I see what you mean, I don't know what Rosberg would cost now he's out of contract but there'd be no £20m fee to Williams at least. Sutil would be cheap, though.

As to Vettel, in 2011 would he rather go up against Alonso at Ferrari or Hamilton at McLaren? Intriguing question...

If McLaren already has Vettel under contract for 2011 and beyond, keeping Kovalainen for one more year sounds like a great idea.

That would surprise me if they had signed. From Vettel's point of view he doesn't know if this year's McLaren flop was a one-off or the start of a post-Ron decline, surely he'd wait to see their 2010 car. Not to say the Ferrari, Brawn and RBR, it would be all too easy to pick the wrong horse at this distance and we know that means a non-season or two. And he could still win the 09 wdc, if he does his value will rocket.

From McLaren's point of view do they really want a pair of alpha drivers again? I suppose Merc wouldn't want a German wdc in another car, otherwise it looks like a bad idea. Points-scorer and compatible, that's the recipe surely.

My point exactly. Probably not a good idea for McLaren to base their 2010 driver choice on the idea that they'll just snap their fingers and Vettel will be Hamilton's teammate in 2011. If they have an understanding/agreement/whatever already in place, fine, but if not...

If McLaren want Vettel, they're going to have a real fight on their hands. You can bet Ferrari will be wanting him as well (between the two, I'd prefer Vettel go to Ferrari because I think Hamilton vs. Vettel will be the new Schmacher vs. Hakkinen, and I don't want to see every race fought out between two silver cars), but both of them are going to be competing with Red Bull. If Adrian newey can keep pumping out chassis like the RB5, I'd say vettel would be quite happy to stay with the Austrian team.

Brawn:
Button
Barrichello (cheap, very motivated, effective, exactly the right speed relative to Button)

Red Bull:
Vettel
Webber

Ferrari:
Alonso
Massa

McLaren:
Hamilton
Rosberg (they still want him, can't wait for Vettel, he needs to cash in now before his value goes down, he'll improve on Heikki a lot, everybody wins)

Renault:
Kovalainen (cheap, available, familiar, experienced, no better alternative)
Grosjean

BMW:
Heidfeld
Kubica

Toyota:
Trulli
Glock

Williams:
Nakajima (Plenty are better but will they sign? No, I don't think they will. Money's not sweet enough.)
Hulkenberg

Force India:
Sutil (I think he belongs in a better seat but unfortunately I don't think he'll get it this time.)
Senna

Toro Rosso:
Buemi
Alguersuari

Campos:
de la Rosa
Petrov

USF1:
Villeneuve (Better choices would be Fisichella, Piquet, Liuzzi, the list goes on... I hope I'm wrong)
Almendinger (Will he? Should he? Beats me. Can he do the business? Yes.)

Manor:
Davidson
Paffett

I wish Sebastien Loeb was somewhere in there.

Loeb will be in the STR car this season at some point. And definitely at the last race. Apologies if you already knew that.

Cancel that. Things have changed.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/77136

They are interested in Adam Carroll. Also there is a potential buyout of the team by a British business man who has a son in F3 that can potentially get the seat..

I wonder if the proposed investigation into the new teams selection process will change who's in and who's out?

Apparently Villeneuve's out. D'oh! I should have seen that coming.

Would this be a Mr. Chilton?

yes. There is an article about it on SpeedTv.

Huzzah! I got it in one!

Hopefully not; it would be very bad indeed. See, the re-selection process would take another two weeks at least, but you can bet a lot of would-be teams ended their Formula One projects either when they didn't make the grade or when FOTA re-joined, thus filling all the available spots. In order for them to have an equal chance at the thing, they'd need more time to find new sponsors and backers. There's no way their old ones would stick with them once everything appeared to be over.

USF1 have been working on their car since February and don't expect the first version to be ready until October. That's eight months to get to the point where a rolling chassis is ready. There's still eight months to go until the first round of 2010, so new new teams could make it ... if they were happy for the car to make its debut in first practice with zero track time. They'd have no idea how well their car worked, or even if the car worked. We all know what happened the last time a car was rushed - Lola's 1997 efforts - and they'd really struggle even with help from FOM and FOTA. Future new teams would see it as proof that it's impossible to get into the sport. It's also likely USF1, Campos and Manor will be included in the new Concorde Agreement, which further complicates things; whatever FOTA and CVC do will be the championship, with or without the FIA.

To further complicate matters, I think N.Technology's claims against the FIA have an ulterior motive and one that is certainly less than altrusitic. I think they're trying to force their way onto the grid; the submitted an application, but then withdrew it when FOTA went rogue, citing that they didn't want to be in a championship without the manufacturers. But then FOAT rejoined and N.Technology were left out in the cold with no way of getting in, even if a current team withdrew for whatever reason. And so, two weeks after the ceasefire came about, the filed with the Parisian courts. I think they realised they burned their bridges too early and so have decided to burn everyone else's in the hopes they can rebuild faster.

5 Live are saying Rosberg to BMW is the latest rumour - they quizzed him on it yesterday. I wonder who'd go - Heidfeld back to Williams?

Latest? I've read it here quite a while ago, lol.

Fair enough.

Wurz for US F1 though? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/8167410.stm