A round they go
The season’s ended and the music’s stopped, so who will be in which seat next year?
By Andy Hum
THOUGH IT LACKED last year’s excitement and drama right to the final corner, this year’s Formula One season has ended nicely with Red Bull Racing finishing 1-2 at the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP, and Brawn GP taking both driver’s and constructors’ world champion titles the race before.
But there’s not much more to celebrate. Toyota announced a few days ago that they will be pulling out of F1. And just before that, Bridgestone had declared that it will not seek to renew its contract after 2010. Now, rumours are flying around that Renault might also pull out.
No one knows yet what will happen to Toyota’s drivers, Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli. But for some others, they’ve already been spoken for.
This year’s world champion, Jenson Button, is currently contracted to Brawn GP. But, as of press time, he has yet to sign a contract for 2010. Team boss, Ross Brawn, did show optimism, however.
“Jenson has a contract with us but, of course, that contract is not the salary of a world champion and not the salary of a team that’s now in a much stronger position than it was 10 months ago,” said Brawn, and added that he was 99 percent sure that Button would stay.
His current team mate, Rubens Barrichello, will no longer be wearing the white, black and green overalls next year – he’ll be wearing white and blue, the colour of the Williams F1 team. His partner next year will be Nico Hulkenberg, this year’s GP2 champion.
That leaves Kazuki Nakajima out of the picture at the moment, as the young driver was hoping for a place in Toyota’s team, which won’t be around in 2010. As for Nico Rosberg, he’s been tipped to move to Brawn GP, with the backing of Mercedes.
McLaren-Mercedes, of course, will be keeping precious Lewis Hamilton. Their other driver, Heikki Kovalainen, is rumoured to be replaced by fellow Finn, Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen has made it clear that he will only be interested in racing for teams with a potentially winning car.
Raikkonen, who is Ferrari’s main driver this year after Felipe Massa’s accident, is being replaced by double world champion, Fernando Alonso. Just last month, Renault signed on Robert Kubica. However, on Thursday, the French car-maker announced that it was considering pulling out of the sport as well, following their recent bad press and poor performance.
