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The drivers left in the market. (9 posts)

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TheJudge said 1 year, 4 months ago:

There are now a lot of 2011 drivers left without a seat and knowing the sittuation with free places in F1 now,I would like to hear your toughts(predictions) about where which driver should end for the 2012 F1 season. For the overview I made the list of drivers,who are searching a seat. :
Adrian Sutil
Vitaly Petrov (Had a contract)
Rubens Barrichello
Bruno Senna
Nick Heidfield (?)
Sebastien Buemi
Jaime Algersuari
Narain Kartikheyan
Vitantonio Liuzzi (Has a contract for 2012)
You are welcome to correct my list if I forgot someone.

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robk23 said 1 year, 4 months ago:

I would’ve thought Sutil or Barrichello are the safest bets for the Williams drive. For a few of those drivers though, careers await outside F1 in GT, DTM or Le Mans.

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TheJudge said 1 year, 4 months ago:

That’s true but not for all of them the fact that they have driven in f1 helps to get a deal in series like @robk23 mentioned. Because there is a completley different atmosphire,tehnique and ways of racing,also the drivers that are adapted to those series are beeing considered better than newcomers from F1.

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LexBlair said 1 year, 4 months ago:

officialy there are 2 vacant seats as of right now…. 1 at Williams and 1 at HRT …..
Lets have a look at Williams first: with Patrick Head out of the picture I´d say the chances of seeing BAR again are slim to none….. so who will take his place? …. in my opinion, there are 2 drivers who have a realistic shot at getting the vaccant seat… Sutil and Petrov, ….. one would say that Sutil would qualify best as he is “the most well-rounded” driver out of those available…..
BUT actually the chances of seeing Petrov in the FW34 next year are much greater in my opinion…..
Why? you may ask….. well lets start at the beginning…
Petrov was under contract to race for Renault(Lotus) in 2012; however, the team terminated his contract one year in advance. The return of Räikkönen had been rumored for quite some time but previously he has been in negotiations with Williams before joining Renault….ALSO… Williams announced that they would be using Renault engines for the 2012 season (and 2013). You opinion of Petrov´s racing skills can be less than shiny but one thing that Petrov undoubtedly brings to a team is money (and A LOTS OF IT)…and Williams is in an avid need of money….. and these are FACTS, people….. so I wouldn´t be very surprised if the announcement came that Petrov would become Maldonado´s team mate for the 2012 season…
And there is HRT….to be honest I really don´t have a clue about this, mainly because I could imagine that some of these drivers would rather be a test driver for a mid-field team than be a driver for HRT…. but I could imagine that Hispania Racing would fancy the idea of having an all spanish line-up…so Algersuari may have the best chance perhaps…

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Zadak said 1 year, 4 months ago:

Trying to guess the HRT drivers for next year is impossible.

Last year they confirmed Karthekayen, I think I can safely guess that noone predicted that

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aka_robyn said 1 year, 4 months ago:

I’m not sure this is much more than a rumor, but Blick is reporting that Buemi is going to be a Red Bull reserve driver:

http://www.blick.ch/sport/formel1/buemi-wird-ersatzfahrer-bei-red-bull-und-toro-rosso-190934

http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-sebastien-buemi-to-be-red-bull-reserve-driver-in-2012-report

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rdpunk said 1 year, 4 months ago:

Yeah Buemi has apparently got a reserve seat with Red Bull which means he’s out of the equation. There are so many talented drivers but unfortunately only 2 remaining seats. It’s going to be impossible guessing both seats because we know that Maldonardo is bringing in a lot of money supposedly so will Williams use another driver with a large sponsorship deal to keep the balance up in what could be another difficult season or will they go for someone who has a lot of speed to try and fight for the results? In an ideal world, they would have a fast driver who is stinking rich but it’s hard to find one.

HRT is even difficult to decide whom could be in that seat but knowing that team, not even the driver will know until Q1 is about to start. I can’t see them getting one of the big drivers in the team like Petrov or Barichello but I feel Alguersuari could move there just so he has a seat or maybe even, finance depending, Senna going back to his old team which, I don’t think is likely.

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TheJudge said 1 year, 4 months ago:

There was a report earlyer in 2011 ,that Petrov’s baking could be in doubt,there for that would make his situation worse in finding a seat.
From Williams’s point of view,they are set to sign a driver who has a lot of the money that they desperatley need. But I’m not sure why Rubens was so confident in his comments about that he’ll get a new deal ?

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Felipe Bomeny said 1 year, 4 months ago:

HRT principal Luis Perez-Sala has effectively ruled out Alguersuari from becoming Pedro de la Rosa’s teammate, instead suggesting a pay driver. Number one on that list is probably Giedo van der Garde; who knows who else is on that list. I just hope Johnny Cecotto Jr. doesn’t graduate to Formula 1 next year with HRT!

As for Williams, it’s between Sutil and the Brazilians, the decision could go either way.

Martin Brundle has hinted that Petrov could buy out Trulli’s contract at Caterham.

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