Sato to Renault? Villeneuve to USF1? De la Rosa to Sauber? Stefan GP onto the grid? Time is running out for the last few seats to be snapped up, but there is still plenty of juicy rumours floating about in the 2010 silly season.
With a little over two months left before the start of the 2010 season, most of the serious teams already have their driver line-ups locked in ready for the start of pre-season testing in a few weeks. But for the mixture of rookies, old hands, sponsor whores and other randomers still left floating about in need of a drive for 2010, there remain six seats available in 2010. None of them look particularly tempting, but all certainly look more tempting than a season of racing in Superleague Formula, so unsurprisingly there's plenty of interest in each of them.
The fight for Renault's second seat seems to be devolving into some weird reality TV contest, with new boss Eric Boullier tantalisingly claiming the team has a shortlist of five drivers for them to decide on. If the various rumours are to be believed, those through to boot camp include Nick Heidfeld, Jacques Villeneuve, Romain Grosjean, Jerome d'Ambrosio, Takuma Sato, Ho-Pin Tung and Vitaly Petrov. Which the eagle-eyed among you will notice means that their shortlist of five names actually contains seven drivers.
Whichever rumours you choose to believe, the strongest guffs from F1's rumour-filled bumhole say that Heidfeld and Sato are the favourites for the drive, with D'Ambrosio saying that he is looking at GP2 for 2010 and Grosjean said to be some way down the list of preferred drivers. Possibly so far down that he's actually fallen off the list entirely.
If Petrov or Heidfeld miss out on the chance to be Robert Kubica's lackey next year, they will console themselves by the fact that they're said to still be on the shortlist for the equally uninspiring job of being Sauber's second driver. Though neither of them are really expected to get that drive either, with Pedro de la Rosa, the greatest driver to emerge from Spain in the history of combustion-powered transport, the hot favourite for that drive. Peter Sauber, though, did warn journalists to expect a "surprise" from their choice of experienced driver, so PatroniseF1 would like everyone to spend the next week or so crossing their fingers and repeating "please don't be Ralf" over and over again.
Speaking of Ralf, the man who has in no way made a career out of toddling around after his brother obscuring his first name on his passport has already revealed that he turned down a chance to return to the sport in 2010 with one of the newbie teams, which depending on which rumour you believe was either USF1, Campos or Lotus. Or possibly Virgin. The potential of a drive with Toro Rosso has also diminished recently, so all we need is for this Sauber link to be confirmed as nonsense and we can all breathe a sigh of deep relief. Toro Rosso themselves are still playing a curious game with Jaime Alguersuari, doubtless making him feel really wanted by still refusing to back up the Spaniard's claim that he has signed a contract to race for the team next season.
As for USF1, as the days go by it seems more and more likely that their 2010 driver line-up will be the stratospherically average pairing of José María López and James Rossiter, both of whom will be forced to hand their wallets in at the door. This is, of course, assuming that USF1 are on the grid at all. Scurrilous mutterings that All-American Super F1 Team USA are about to fall completely on their arse refuse to go away, and Stefan GP allegedly remain in the shadows, ready to step in to the gap left by a collapsing USF1. Should Stefan GP find a way onto the grid with their copies of Toyota's proposed 2010 car, they will run Kazuki Nakajima in one of their seats (apparently) as per (apparently) the terms and conditions of the Toyota design sale (apparently).
Even if USF1 do make it, Stefan GP might still have a way onto the grid, with Campos becoming the latest team to be linked with imminent bucketloads of fail. Some suggest the team is set to be sold, others claim the team might just fold entirely, and others suggest some sort of link-up with the Stefan GP outfit, making some sort of superteam of F1 squads unable to design their own car, which would leave them with one Dallara design and one Toyota design. And probably still no money.
Despite all of that rumour-based speculation, the most likely outcome remains the signing of either Petrov or Pastor Maldonado alongside the already-confirmed Bruno Senna for 2010, with the sponsor money from either driver proving to be enough to plug the massive hole in the team's 2010 budget.
So, with two months to go, the final look of the grid continues to limp near to a conclusion. Sort of.
Confirmed drivers so far:
Mercedes GP - Rosberg / Schumacher
Red Bull - Webber / Vettel
McLaren - Hamilton / Button
Ferrari - Alonso / Massa
Williams - Barrichello / Hulkenburg
Renault - Kubica / TBA
Force India - Sutil / Liuzzi
Toro Rosso - Buemi / TBA
Sauber - Kobayashi / TBA
Campos - Senna / TBA
Manor - Glock / di Grassi
USF1 - TBA / TBA
Lotus - Trulli / Kovalainen
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