| McLaren - Mercedes | 1 | Lewis Hamilton | 2 | Heikki Kovalainen |
| Ferrari | 3 | Kimi Raikkonen | 4 | Felipe Massa |
| BMW Sauber | 5 | Nick Heidfeld | 6 | Robert Kubica |
| Renault | 7 | Fernando Alonso | 8 | Nelson Piquet Jr |
| Toyota | 9 | Jarno Trulli | 10 | Timo Glock |
| Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 11 | TBA | 12 | TBA |
| Red Bull - Renault | 14 | Mark Webber | 15 | Sebastian Vettel |
| Williams - Toyota | 16 | Nico Rosberg | 17 | Kazuki Nakajima |
| Honda | 18 | TBA | 19 | TBA |
| Force India - Mercedes | 20 | Giancarlo Fisichella | 21 | Adrian Sutil |
What remains to be decided
With Renault confirming Alonso and Piquet Jr for 2009, the grid for next year is looking more and more like a slightly copy-and-pasted version of this years. The few remaining seats to be decided, though, do offer the chance of some fresh meat, and some familiar returnees.
At Toro Rosso, the pair of seats look set for two different scraps to claim them. Gerhard Berger has indicated that one seat will be for an "experienced driver", so one from current man Sebastien Bourdais, former Honda lackey Takuma Sato or even current Honda lackey Rubens Barrichello (should he lose his current seat), and the other seat for "youth", so one from Bruno Senna, Sebastien Buemi or Renault tester Lucas di Grassi. Current favourites would probably be Bourdais and Buemi, but the final decision will probably be largely down to the relative performance of the trio of Sato, Bourdais and Buemi at the upcoming Barcelona test. And of course, what goes on at Honda.
Speaking of Honda, with Jenson Button in seat #1 in all but actually-being-confirmedness, the occupier of the second seat at the fallen Japanese giant will probably be decided in Barcelona as well, as the young man with the big name (Master Senna) has a plod around in a RA108 for the chance to become the newest young Brazilian star, replacing the fading old Brazilian star Rubens Barrichello in the process. If turfed out on his ear, Bazza will turn his attention to the Toro Rosso pile-on. Hopefully (if there's any justice in the Godless universe) with some joy.
The only other slight issue of note to discuss in the rapidly dwindling realm of this silly season is at Force India. Although current seat holders Fisichella and Sutil were confirmed by the team way back in the mists of last season at some point, the desperate state of the current rumour mill has led to some residual discussions flaring up over whether new "technical partners" Mercedes will want to bung one of their development drivers in to the team in place of (presumably) Dynamite Sutil. Main candidate for a surprise promotion is Paul di Resta, who spent this season busily finishing second in the DTM Championship.
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