Really? When?

Force India would make sense for Senna I reckon.

And they'd thankfully take his cash.

Do not know when, it is reported as last week

http://twitter.com/f1enigma

Autosport all but confirms a deal between Virgin and Manor, while simultaneously suggesting that Emirates will back Brawn as title sponsor.

Emirates Brawn GP Formula One Team

Virgin Manor F1 Team

Erm, who?

Sorry, fixed that.;)

By the way, GrandPrix.com mentions Telefónica, BBVA and El Corte Ingles as sponsors for Campos, while also stating that P. Martínez de la Rosa is waiting for a potential Epsilon Euskadi seat with Renault power rather than having signed for Campos-Cosworth, just yet.

If Virgin-Manor is the case, I vote they should be known as Playboy Mansion.

Emirates. They're a Middle Eastern airliner who used to sponsor McLaren before McLaren picked up Vodafone sponsorship. I'd say they'd be primed to get back in the game since Ferrari scooped up rivals Ethiad from Spyker when Spyker became Force India and Mallya ran Kingfisher sponsorship instead.

Yeah, it seems you're right about the 4 teams cap. And it looks quite likely now that Red Bull would switch to Mercedes (they are close to making a decision, right after Vettel losing 2 engines in one weekend). So, it's looking like Mercedes will supply McLaren, Force India, Brawn and probably Red Bull next year. Renault may supply one of the new teams (the Cosworth apparently is seen as an inferior option, right now), or the Torro Rosso instead of the Red Bull, or maybe Williams if Toyota withdraws or Williams continues to seek another engine supplier even if they can't get a Mercedes deal.

Should Epsilon Euskadi get an entry for 2010, they're rumoured to have a deal with Renault, which could leave Toro Rosso with Ferraris. If BMW Sauber gets bought out, they'll run with Ferrari power, possibly leaving Toro Rosso with Renaults. If Williams opt for Renault, that might free up Toyotas for Toro Rosso.

with all the data redbull family have with tororosso, can a switch to Ferrari not be on the cards? mercedes for sure is regarded one of the top engines but Ferrari after all there success havn't suddenly forgot how to make a championship engine -REMEMBER ross went to Ferrari first for a engine supply he knows that the budget and r&d ferrari have NO EnGINE manufactier can come close. Hasn't the ferrar engine got the best reliability record in the shumi years?

but i still think redbull choose mercedes.

I don't think Ferrari will want to supply engines to a potential World Championship rival. And remember, Red Bull used Ferrari engines to little success in 2006.

Plus: Mercedes-Benz is the obvious choice for improvement over Renault, since Mercedes-powered cars have won 8 of this season's 11 races so far, with Red Bull taking the other 3 itself, and not even the Renault factory team.

Which should be a pretty big hint that the engine's contribution to winning races is rather small, considering both renault victories were scored by the customer team and 7 out of 8 merc victories were also scored by the customer team ;)

I was rather trying to point out that Red Bull may view having Mercedes engines, which have won double the amount of races they have, may be the last piece of the puzzle the team needs to consistently challenge for the World Championship.

i can't provide a source atm, but i've read somewhere that the teams which want to enter F1 in 2010 are obligated to use cosworth. i think i've read that in context of a team the FIA did not accept as a new entrant or one of the accepted teams complaining about being forced to go for cosworth - maybe someone else can back this up.

That was the original obligation, but I don't believe it applies any longer.

Now that everyone knows about it.

Cosworth has stated that they have limited capacity and can only supply 3 teams.

Exactly.

I've seen rumours about Team US F1 switching to Toyota, too.

Here we go....

Brawn GP Formula One Team
Engine: Mercedes
KERS: Mercedes
Drivers
1. Jenson Button
2. Rubens Barrichello

Red Bull Racing
Engine: Renault
KERS: Renault MM
3. Mark Webber
4. Sebastian Vettel

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Engine: Ferrari F2010 – Ferrari 056
KERS: Ferrari MM
5. Felipe Massa
6. Fernando Alonso

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Engine: Mercedes FO108X
KERS: Mercedes
7. Lewis Hamilton
8. Kimi Räikkönen

Panasonic Toyota Racing
Engine: Toyota
KERS: TOYOTA
9. Timo Glock
10. Giancarlo Fisichella

AT&T Williams
Engine: Mercedes
KERS: Williams
12. Adrian Sutil
13. Nico Hülkenberg (test driver currently in GP2)

Renault F1 Team
Engine: Renault R30 – Renault R27
14. Robert Kubica
15. Romain Grosjean

Scuderia Toro Rosso
Engine: Ferrari 056 (
KERS MM
16. Sébastien Buemi (hard to see him dropped after some solid drives)
17. Jaime Alguersuari, jr. (replaced Bourdais mid-season '09, likely to stay on)

Force India F1 Team / Prodrive
Engine: Mercedes
Kers: Mercedes
18. Trulli....
19. Vitantonio Liuzzi

Campos Meta Team
Campos Meta CM10 – Cosworth CA2010 (Dallara-designed and -built car)
20. Alex Wurz
21. Giorgio Pantano (although Italian, he was GP2 champion for Campos in ‘08)

Manor F1 Team
Engine: Cosworth CA2010
KERS: Williams
22. Anthony Davidson
23. Vitaly Petrov

Team US F1
US F1-10 – Cosworth CA2010
KERS:
24. Pedro de la Rosa (
25. Graham Rahal

Sauber F1 Team
Engine: Ferrari 056 (again with Petronas badge?) / Cosworth CA2010 (an other option)
KERS: BMW
26. Nick Heidfeld (contracted for '09)
27. Christian Klien

I dont think that Williams is ready to dump the other Nico

Nico to ... Prodrive ...

Never going to happend. Williams is keen to hold him, and also McLaren is interested. He will end only in an other top team or Williams...

This is pure rumor but it's doing the rounds and I can't find a better thread to post it on ( and most certainly don't want to start a new one)

anyways rumor is this: Renault places Grossjean in Williams (and gives them free Renault engines) and gets Kubica for 010. I should point out that this specific rumor implies that Alonso stays put in Renault for 010 so ... make what you will out of it.

This rumour stuff is getting silly.
If you read this article from Autosport, they claim that Kubica is going to Renault.
But if you look for a quote from Robert, he said nothing like this.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/78008

It could work. Williams aren't above taking on a driver as a part of an engine deal, but I remeber back when Nakajima was testing for them and Williams described him as "solid", which basically translated as "good tester, not much else". That said, I think they'd be happier with someone like Grosjean than Nakajima. Of course, they may not be too keen on it if they're looking to promote Nico Hulkenberg to a race seat because then the'd have one rookie and one near-rookie and they're Williams. They deserve more than that. They want Hulkenberg, but they may also want Renault; if they hold Hulkenberg back another year, you can bet he'll be snapped up by someone like Manor looking for a quick-but-cheap driver to star for them.

And it remains a good point, despite the bitchings of the schoolgirl brigade.

Face it, FM exceeded KR in the races before his freak accident: Turkey, Britain, Germany.
And now we are supposed to believe into a magic leap of performance by KR, coincidentally just at the moment when his yardstick disappears? The very same KR who peaked back in 2005, and who stagnated since he won his WDC in 2007?
Laughable.

Maybe you also consider in your analysis that at the last two races everything came together for Kimi which wasn´t so the at turkey, silverstone and germany.

Your point being? Kimi being lucky in the last two races?

Sure,Massa would have won in Hungary and Valencia Give the man a credit when he deserves it.Fact is Kimi has brought Ferrari its best result this season being twice at second place.

Cannot remember myself saying that.


I thought he was third in Valencia. Did I miss anything?

Sorry,i remembered Kimi was second at Monaco.I maybe understanded your post wrong,so again sorry I just find it strange that now when Massa is out Kimi is happy with his car and there seems to be no problems.

So far about your 'facts'.

Strange it is indeed.

There are so many potential moves going on it's difficult keeping track, could be a vintage silly season this year and a much changed line up in 2010.

Renault brings their sponsorship with Total and Hulkenberg has been sponsorised by Total (ELF) in GP2 don't forget that...

Total need to increase their part in germany just like Elf in 90's with Schumi at Benetton.

Could it be also related to the fact that the conditions at the Hungaroring and Valencia were somewhat similar to Monaco (mainly slow corners, relatively high temperature, street track - not at Hungary, though, but dusty surface, and soft and super-soft tyres), where the car was already very good, and at least one of Red Bull and Brawn was struggling ?

Perhaps:

Ferrari Massa/Alonso
McLaren Hamilton/Rosberg
Renault Kubica/Heidfeld
Williams/Renault Raikkonen/Grosjean

It would be a shame to see Rosberg miss out on a McLaren drive, simply because they choose Raikkonen instead.

Here's my take at what lustigson is doing, ie, list of all the open possibilities. The goal here was to only list rumours started by the press and not by forum members, although it's difficult to keep track of what kind of rumour each thing is. The color code is:

green - confirmed
blue - likely
orangey - possible
red - unlikely

I definitely think I missed something somewhere, so a little help would be nice.

Here we go:

Ferrari (confirmed)
Sponsors
Banco Santander (heavily rumoured to join)
Engines
Ferrari (confirmed)
Drivers
Felipe Massa (contracted, likely to stay)
Kimi Raikkonen (contracted but uncertain to stay)
Luca Badoer (likely to leave)
Fernando Alonso (heavily rumoured to join)
Giancarlo Fisichella (rumoured to join the rest of 2009, could remain in case Massa takes longer than expected to recover)
Mirko Bortolotti (same as above)
Jules Bianchi (same as above)
Michael Schumacher (rumoured to join but unlikely and only if team is allowed to run 3 cars)

McLaren (confirmed)
Sponsors
Vodafone (likely to stay)
Banco Santander (likely to leave)
Engines
Mercedes (confirmed)
Drivers
Lewis Hamilton (confirmed)
Heikki Kovalainen (likely to leave)
Nico Rosberg (heavily rumoured to join)
Robert Kubica (rumoured to join)
Timo Glock (earlier rumoured to join)

Renault (contracted, but it's not impossible they could pull out)
Sponsors
unknown
Engines
Renault (confirmed)
Drivers
Romain Grosjean (likely to stay)
Fernando Alonso (contracted but uncertain to stay)
Robert Kubica (heavily rumoured to join)
Lucas Di Grassi (connected to the team but unlikely)

Toyota (contracted, but rumoured to pull out)
Sponsors
Panasonic (likely to stay)
Engines
Toyota (confirmed)
Drivers
Timo Glock (likely to stay)
Jarno Trulli (likely to leave)
Kazuki Nakajima (connected to the team but unlikely)
Kimi Raikkonen (rumoured but unlikely)

Toro Rosso (confirmed, but earlier thought to be for sale)
Sponsors
Red Bull (likely to stay)
Engines
Ferrari (likely to stay)
Drivers
Sebastien Buemi (likely to stay)
Jaime Alguersuari (likely to stay)
Brendon Hartley (connected to the team but unlikely)
Daniel Ricciardo (connected to the team but unlikely)
Robert Wickens (connected to the team but unlikely)
Sebastien Loeb (earlier rumoured to join)

Red Bull (confirmed)
Sponsors
Red Bull (confirmed)
Engines
Mercedes (heavily rumoured to join)
Renault (unlikely to stay)
Drivers
Sebastian Vettel (confirmed)
Mark Webber (confirmed)

Williams (confirmed)
Sponsors
AT&T (likely to stay)
Engines
Renault (heavily rumoured to join)
Toyota (unlikely to stay)
Drivers
Nico Rosberg (uncertain to stay)
Kazuki Nakajima (unlikely to stay)
Nico Hulkenberg (connected to the team and likely to join)

Brawn (confirmed)
Sponsors
Emirates Airline (earlier rumoured to join)
Monster energy drink (earlier rumoured to join)
Bwin (earlier rumoured to join)
Telmex (earlier rumoured to join)
Engines
Mercedes (likely to stay)
Drivers
Jenson Button (likely to stay)
Rubens Barrichello (likely to stay)
Kimi Raikkonen (earlier rumoured to join)
Bruno Senna (earlier rumoured to join)

Force India (confirmed, outside chance it'll change ownership)
Sponsors
Kingfisher (rumoured to stay)
Engines
Mercedes (likely to stay)
Drivers
Adrian Sutil (likely to stay)
Giancarlo Fisichella (uncertain to stay)
Vitantonio Liuzzi (connected to the team, might join as a race driver)
Vitaly Petrov (rumoured to join if Fisichella moves now to Ferrari)
Karun Chandhok (earlier rumoured to join)

Manor (confirmed)
Sponsors
Virgin (heavily rumoured to join)
Engines
Cosworth (likely to join)
Drivers
Max Chilton (rumoured to join)

Campos (confirmed)
Sponsors
Telefonica (rumoured to join)
BBVA (rumoured to join)
Engines
Cosworth (likely to join)
Drivers
Pedro de la Rosa (heavily rumoured to join)
Vitaly Petrov (rumoured to join)
Marc Gene (rumoured to join)

USF1 (confirmed)
Sponsors
Youtube (likely to join)
Engines
Cosworth (likely to join)
Drivers
Pedro de la Rosa (rumoured to join)
Alexander Wurz (rumoured to join)
Jonathan Summerton (rumoured to join)
Ryan Hunter-Reay (rumoured to join)

Sauber (name to be confirmed, team running for the 13th spot BMW left open)
Sponsors
Petronas (rumoured to stay as main backers)
Engines
unknown
Drivers
Robert Kubica (likely to leave)
Nick Heidfeld (likely to leave)
Christian Klien (connected to the team, might join as a race driver)

Epsilon Euskadi (team running for the 13th spot BMW left open)
Sponsors
unknown
Engines
Renault (rumoured to join)
Drivers
Pedro de la Rosa (rumoured to join)

Prodrive (team running for the 13th spot BMW left open; also rumoured to buy Force India)
Sponsors
unknown
Engines
Mercedes (rumoured to join)
Drivers
unknown

Hülkenberg's Williams seat confirmed for 2010 ?

RTL asked Weber if Hülkenberg is allowed to replace Badoer.

"If Ferrari asks us we wouldn't say no. What should Williams have against if they get a driver for 2010 who has 5 races experience in a Ferrari?"

http://www.rtl.de/sport/formel-1/formel1_9...?media=artikel5

I don't believe youtube (aka google) is in any way connected to USF1. The youtube's founder has a position within the team, and has invested money however I don't think actual sponsorship is involved (but I could be wrong)

Rosberg is said to be on less than 1 million - would have thought Williams would need to find a major salary increase to keep their number one or to attract a driver like Heidfield to replace him. We are also told that Williams still lacks major sponsorship $$$ so will probably want to do some kind of deal like the Grosjean plus Renault one suggested by Engel.

If Brawn are viewed as a second season failure due to lack of funding then with BMW demise there is a lack of top - middle seats available for the rumoured defectors like Raikonnen, Rosberg and Kubica. I suspect Rubens will be dropped because he shot his whiney stuff once too often for a guy of his experience which leaves one gap at a team with a question mark over it. Renault are underperformers and without Alonso could fail very badly and get bad raps at Renault board which is probably already happening.

The upshot is I think there are some top 10 names who may miss out altogether or have to settle for a newcomer. I suspect that Sauber BMW won't be salvaged with the FIA mentality of "told you so" a likely component of team "selection". Max has proven that he isn't above destructive behaviour.

Rosberg is already on second contract though.

Perhaps his first contract was $500,000-750,000 range, but on his current deal he must be on at least $5million-10million or more.

With his managers, he would not drive for such low salary as an established star surely.

Except that they've already secured three years' worth of funding and see no good reason to get rid of Button or Barrichello.

Well, Nick Fry claims to have three years of funding. I will believe it when I see it, but if the Virgin deal is anything to go by, even then it won't be much of a guarantee.

Is it 3 years now without being able to secure any, or 4?

Good effort.

2 additions, though:

• YouTube is in no way connected to Team US F1; it's founder and co-owner Chad Hurley who's investing in the team.
• If P.P. Sauber manages to arrange a buy-out, allegedly with help of Petronas, it is said they will run with Ferrari engines, possibly badged as Petronas, like in 1997-2005.

I have to believe you that the figures I used were a year out of date. He looks like he should be around 10th - 12th on the pay chart with an increase due for 2010. Hulkenburg looks to be a great replacement for Kaz provided the team have the services of an experienced hand and they should be able to attract someone half decent on merit even if not with monetary rewards.

Raikonnen still looks to be the other wild card if the buzz about Alonso's departure is true.

I can't believe that Brawn have a financial package to take them through to championship challenging position for next year with the Virgin fiasco. They are clearly desperate for a major sponsor despite leading both championships. I expect they may look for a driver who comes with some "support" to replace the aging Rubens who moans too much and produces too many ordinary performances. Another show at Spa like what he delivered at Valencia and this comment could look ill-judged though.

Recent information from Formula Money claims he's on around one and half million. I doubt Williams would pay anyone $5 - $10m.

I presume you are talking about KR to Williams. The same was written in an article in AUTOSPORT.COM (Journal - Latest) but I'm not sure if SFW would be willing to shed so much dough for Kimi. More likely that if ever Kimi leaves Ferrari, and intends to stay in F1, he will likely go back to McLaren.
The same article mentions Hulkenburg as a very likely candidate to drive for Williams next year.

Kimi won't be able to command huge salary anywhere, and if he's getting paid off by Ferrari he'll have even less negotiating leverage with another team. If he wants to drive an F1 car, the teams will decide his value.

True: Frank and Patrick have dumped 3 World Champion drivers — Piquet, Mansell, and Hill — for their high salary demands.