And so, it is nearly over. One of the longest, one of the most bizarre, one of the least predictable silly seasons in living memory is just about ready to be filed away in the drawer marked "Stuff that happened". And yet, with the season looming large in the foreground, a little over four weeks away, there are still some key parts to the 2010 grid that remain fuzzy and undefined, like the surface of Mars viewed through a substandard telescope.
Since the last silly season report a month ago, most of the remaining pieces of the madness of the jigsaw we call the 2010 grid have slotted neatly into place. Jaime Alguersuari has finally been confirmed at Toro Rosso, Vitaly Petrov has finally bought a seat at Renault (though perhaps, not paid for it just yet...), USF1 have secured the moneybags diva that goes by the name of J-Lo (not that moneybags diva, obviously), and Sauber have signed a geriatric Spaniard.
And, as such, there isn't an awful lot left to fill this final report of the winter. Nothing, that is, apart from literally everything that still maybe possibly might happen. For a grid that now has a mere two remaining seats, at Campos and USF1, an awful lot is still to be decided between now and Bahrain. And possibly even after Bahrain.
As far as the drives themselves go, the Campos seat now looks set to be a straight fight between Formula 2 champion Andy Soucek and former BMW Sauber man Christian Klien. Unless Pastor Maldonado can drum up some Venezuelan cash, that is. Or Tony Teixeira buys out the team and puts A1GP champion Adam Carroll in the seat (though Carroll's manager seemed as surprised as anyone when confronted with that particular rumour).
The sad fact is that whoever gets the Campos drive is likely to arrive quite late in the day, potentially without testing the car beforehand, be given one of the worst and most ill-prepared cars in F1 history, and asked to somehow not humiliate themselves in the Bahrain GP weekend. Unless, of course, they choose to skip the start of the season altogether, as is now apparently their right. Either way, it isn't the biggest mystery in modern sport as to how the Campos shortlist has been reduced down to only the most desperate of former and potential F1 drivers.
Speaking of Ralf Schumacher, he is actually not angling for a Campos drive at all, and has instead been linked with one of the seats at singularly mental Stefan GP team for next year, alongside the similar might of former Williams failure Kazuki Nakajima. The Stefan team are talking the talk a lot more than Campos are right now, having shipped equipment to Bahrain ahead of the race they're not currently invited to, organised a test at the Portimao circuit they might not be allowed to run if they are invited to Bahrain any time soon, and made cooing noises in the direction of Campos chassis supplier Dallara.
The reasons behind this Dallara move is the subject of much discussion. If you're feeling level headed, the move is a pragmatic approach to an experienced motorsport name, who will potentially be out of work in 2010 should Campos fail, giving them the option of helping the rather inexperienced Stefan GP squad develop their knockoff 2010 Toyota throughout the next season, be that in F1 itself, or in an extended period of tests outside the FIA's choking rulebook. If you're a mad Spanish tabloid, Stefan GP plan to buy up the rights to the chassis earmarked for Campos and essentially force them out of the sport in a manner akin to someone dealing with their love rival by performing a poorly sanitised castration on him.
Assuming Campos somehow find some investment (most likely from the aforementioned Teixeira, though he was most recently in the news being successfully sued for $4.5 million by the Team USA A1GP team), Stefan might still have a way onto the grid with their Ralf-Nakas dream team should the USF1 project conspire to fall on it's arse.
The all-American heroes recently cemented their desire to promote American motorsport stars in F1 for 2010 by being heavily linked with Spanish Superleague driver Adrian Valles for the seat alongside Argentine driver J-Lo for next year, but with the team still producing very little tangible in the way of a car aside from the odd doodle and some blurry photos of half a monocoque (if that isn't a contradiction in terms, which it probably is), rumours persist that they've spent so long hammering out press releases, booking tracks in Alabama to test on and building a crap website that they're not actually going to be ready in time for the new season.
The new FIA rules allow them to miss up to three races without penalty, but in an interesting take on baseball, the FIA have a "four strikes and you're out" rule for 2010, which would see that team depart the series, and potentially might offer a post-eleventh hour way in to F1 for Stefan GP. Bernie Ecclestone certainly seems to like them. But then he's probably just intrigued by the idea of Hermann Tilke building a cut-price Serbian GP track in Belgrade.
In conclusion then, at the end of this final silly season report for 2010, who knows what will happen down the far end of the grid by the time we reach Bahrain. Certainly not us. Which means that we finish this particular feature for this season with a vague sense of bemused disappointment. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how we like all good PatroniseF1 features to end.
So, as for that pesky grid lineup in Bahrain, we'll just have to wait and see. And in the meantime, here's some music.
Confirmed drivers so far:
Mercedes GP - Rosberg / Schumacher
Red Bull - Webber / Vettel
McLaren - Hamilton / Button
Ferrari - Alonso / Massa
Williams - Barrichello / Hulkenburg
Renault - Kubica / Petrov
Force India - Sutil / Liuzzi
Toro Rosso - Buemi / Alguersuari
Sauber - Kobayashi / de la Rosa
Campos - Senna / TBA
Manor - Glock / di Grassi
USF1 - Lopez / TBA
Lotus - Trulli / Kovalainen
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Subscribe to this comment's feedMr. ElChiva for you
2 maybe 3 empty seats available in the new grid and 27 drivers claiming they are in negotiations with the teams, kubica dressed as a bee, mclaren spraying green alien stuff all over the diffuser and rear wing... (again).
I declare silly season open!!!
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