Ferrari
| Seat 1 | Kimi Raikkonen (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Felipe Massa (probable) |
The fact that the pre-Monza announcement from the team, confirming that Kimi Raikkonen would be kept on until at least 2010, came as a surprise is largely down to the poor form of the reigning champion to date this year. But his temporary return to form in Belgium was enough for the Scuderia to snap the Finn up for the next two seasons, shattering the rumours of the reigning champs impending retirement and also the dreams of Fernando Alonso, who had rather fancied a go in one of those cars himself. Felipe Massa's role alongside the erudite one surely can no longer be in doubt as he continues to actually bother putting together a title push.
BMW Sauber
| Seat 1 | Nick Heidfeld (probable) | Seat 2 | Robert Kubica (confirmed) |
| Fernando Alonso (possible) |
Bobby K has been confirmed as staying with the Germo-Swiss team for a least one more year, and Raikkonen's confirmation at Ferrari for the foreseeable future may well keep him there longer, so he now needs to hope that the team plan to focus on a whole season at some point in the future. Nick Heidfeld's much-improved performances of late would ordinarily have seen him confirmed alongside the Pole, but with a certain two time world champion sniffing around for any drive in a race-winning car still available, Ickle is still on very shaky ground, like a man on a trampoline in an earthquake.
McLaren - Mercedes
| Seat 1 | Lewis Hamilton (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Heikki Kovalainen (confirmed) |
Red Bull - Renault
| Seat 1 | Mark Webber (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Sebastian Vettel (confirmed) |
Toyota
| Seat 1 | Jarno Trulli (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Timo Glock (confirmed) |
Williams - Toyota
| Seat 1 | Nico Rosberg (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Kazuki Nakajima (probable) |
| Nico Hulkenburg (possible) |
Rosberg was confirmed at the team for next year a couple of weeks ago, and the probable outcome in the other seat is still that Nakajima will be granted a second year to impress. Williams seem to be concentrating most of their efforts on developing an ultimately-poor car for next year rather than sorting out details like who'll actually drive it at the moment, so Hulkenburg still can't be ruled out, while recent Spanish tester Dani Clos looks to be around two years and about 250% more talent away from an F1 race seat.
Renault
| Seat 1 | Fernando Alonso (probable) | Seat 2 | Nelson Piquet Jr (probable) |
| Nick Heidfeld (possible) | Romain Grosjean (possible) | ||
| Lucas di Grassi (possible) |
Renault are still hopeful of keeping hold of their prodigal son who keeps wanting to go a-prodigaling, and you can understand why. With Piquet continuing to have a hopeless time of things in 2008 and the potential replacements looking more than a little flaky, the team could be left with a veritable deficit of riches for 2009. The potential saving grace may be that if Alonso does move to BMW, that would leave Nick Heidfeld scratching about for a drive somewhere, and of the seats still available, Renault would be better than most.
Honda
| Seat 1 | Jenson Button (contracted) | Seat 2 | Rubens Barrichello (possible) |
| Fernando Alonso (unlikely) |
Nothing much has changed in Honda's position. The state of play remains that should Fernando Alonso choose to complete the career suicide that he began at some point in mid-2007, and move across to the witless Japanese team, then Boobens will likely be carted off to the DTM. Button, despite phoning in his performances this season and currently residing all-but-bottom of the points places (only the pointless Force India pair are below him), will probably be kept on no matter what, on the combined basis that Brawn has some good old-fashioned English bias inside him somewhere, and the fact that Alonso + A Brit has worked so well in the past. Well, maybe not that second one.
Toro Rosso - Ferrari
| Seat 1 | Sebastien Bourdais (probable) | Seat 2 | Bruno Senna (probable) |
| Sebastien Buemi (possible) | |||
| Takuma Sato (unlikely) |
After his performances at Spa and Monza, Bourdais more than likely deserves a boost from "possible" to "probable", but nothing is certain in the Toro Rosso network for 2009, and the performances of the glut of drivers they are handing out tests to in the coming weeks may well make the situation even less clear. Bruno Senna still remains the bookies favourite for one of the seats, despite failing to beat a 32 year old journeyman to the GP2 title, while Sato and Buemi test this week at Jerez, with Sato likely to be fast but crash a bit, and Buemi likely to be a carting great heap. Whether they are fighting Senna for the second seat, or fighting Bourdais for the first seat, is unclear.
Force India - Ferrari
| Seat 1 | Giancarlo Fisichella (confirmed) | Seat 2 | Adrian Sutil (confirmed) |
Shortly after we published our last silly season round up, Fisi and Suti were confirmed for another year of backmarking duties with Force India. Hurray for them!
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