Silly Season several seats still available

In the wake of the much expected announcement that Valtteri Bottas and and teenager Lance Stroll will line up on the grid for Williams next year, the Silly Season is still bubbling with several seats still available including prime spots with Force India and Renault.

Bottas, who was a target for Renault, is now out of the picture with a big question mark emerging over who will partner Nico Hulkenberg in the team next season, the last of the works teams to still have a seat available.

Of the current drivers Kevin Magnussen is still a candidate, more so than Jolyon Palmer. With Bottas out the picture the Dane may well be set for another year with the team.

However there has been some noise over at Haas, the American outfit have shown an interest in Magnussen and some in France are even predicting a swap between Magnussen and Romain Grosjean whose junior career and early days in F1 were funded by Renault, being French is also a bonus.

Jean Eric Vergne is allegedly also a contender for the drive despite being on the F1 sidelines since 2014.

Grosjean is clearly unhappy with things at Haas and has not been shy to vocalise his feelings lately, while it appears that the American team has ‘fallen out of love’ with Esteban Gutierrez who is reportedly on his way out.

The Mexican has a bundle of cash and his options are either Force India or Sauber, with the latter increasingly likely as there is history between the Swiss teams and the array of Mexican backers that Gutierrez will bring to the party.

Some media outlets have reported that Esteban Ocon to Force India is a done deal, but the word from Silverstone is that nothing is decided and if they were to have any of the Mercedes juniors they would pick Pascal Wehrlein.

Smart money is that the German rookie will be the one to move away from Manor, with Ocon to remain at Manor or even a possibility for Renault, should they fail to secure another senior driver.

At the same time reports have surfaced in Brazil that well backed Felipe Nasr is to be a Force India driver next year, although he is also said to have had talks with Renaault as he is unlikely to stay with Sauber.

Also actively hunting for a drive on the grid, and likely to surface somewhere is Palmer who is in talks with Sauber and Force India.

Marcus Ericsson will probably stay another year with Sauber, but the Swede has admits that he has some alternative prospects in the pipeline.

And of course there is also Rio Haryanto hovering in the background and waiting on the Indonesian government to fund his adventures in F1.

Former team owner Eddie Jordan, who either gets it spot on or totally wrong, is predicting:”Ocon to Force India, Nasr to Renault and Gutierrez to Sauber,”

2017 Teams & Drivers

No.	Driver’s Name	Team Name	Engine
44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing	TAG-Heuer
33	Max Verstappen	Infiniti Red Bull Racing	TAG-Heuer
77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing	Mercedes
??	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	Mercedes
5	Sebastien Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	Honda
47	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	Honda
	TBC	Sahara Force India F1 Team	Mercedes
11	Sergio Perez	Sahara Force India F1 Team	Mercedes
26	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso	Ferrari
55	Carlos Sainz	Scuderia Toro Rosso	Ferrari
27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault
	TBC	Renault	Renault
	TBC	Sauber F1 Team	Ferrari
	TBC	Sauber F1 Team	Ferrari
	TBC	Manor F1 Team	Mercedes
	TBC	Manor F1 Team	Mercedes
	TBC	Haas F1 Team	Ferrari
	TBC	Haas F1 Team	Ferrari

 

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