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Lotus: Grsojean still not confirmed. Latest news is that they are considering Kobayashi.

Force India: Hulkenberg still needs to be replaced. Candidates that I heard circulating: Kobayashi, Sutil, Bianchi and the ex-STR drivers, even Narain. My bet is on Bianchi.

Caterham: hard to guess. Pic is already comfirmed so one of Heikki or Petrov needs to go. Van Der Garde is also an option. Maybe they are interested in Senna's money too. I wouldn't bet on this.

Marussia: well it would be a surprise if it's not going to be Max Chilton, they have a tradition to put rookies in the second seat next to Glock

HRT: they will only decide if their future is safe so no driver will be keen to drive there at the moment

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Well they just laid off their staff, so I doubt that they will be racing next year.

Your post is already flawed. Senna has a seat - that much we do know. It's a good seat to - something he was VERY happy to leave williams for. That means we're looking at Lotus or Force India.

HRT can be removed from the list given that they no longer have a single employee and it's too late to buy out, pay the fees, relocate, hire staff, pay off debt, design car, build car, get sponsors, etc.

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Senna has a seat? link please.

Alguersuari has one too apparently...maybe both are lying.

I'm not so sure he has one yet but does seem confident he has something, also usually if something has been agreed with any driver some media always gets it and leaks it first... We haven't seen this yet so.

he said that mid season, bit premature really if you ask me latest he said he is getting frustrated because past performance doesn't count only what you can bring.... I found him average anyway so maybe they did take past performance into account

Just 'playing through' in my head who is available for FI, and came to the conclusion Alguersuari would be my choice from 'the pack' but wondered, depending on if they need to bring cash, Parfit would probably do a good job, especally as they have the Mclaren and Merc tieup

Paffett will never have a full-time drive in F1. He is a test driver.

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And without confirmation from the teams, Senna and Alguersuari commenting that they have drives next season mean nothing. I always thought Algy was jumping the gun when he said he would be announcing his team soon, shows that circumstances change quickly and verbal agreements are nothing (look at how he was fired from TR; the team had told him he would drive for them in 2012). So though I believe Senna probably does have a seat sorted, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It only takes as good a driver with a bigger budget to show up and Senna's 'contract' could easily be ripped up.

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PF1 Pick 10 Podiums: 6 (2nd IND '11; 1st JPN '12; 1st MCO '13; 3rd DEU '16; 3rd USA '16, 3rd MEX '16)

For mclaren, who have a tieup with FI and Merc engines?

There's much talk about him getting the 2nd seat at FI. If so, good for him!

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Lotus: Grosjean
Force India: Alguersuari/Senna
Caterham: Petrov
Marussia: Chilton
HRT: Ma (if they are around)

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Cool. I missed that little bit of paddock gossip. If he gets a seat with the FI team that works for me.

Just read an interesting rumor Algs has been told that he potentially has a seat at force India, but that the problem is they believe drivers of the equal abilities and more money are also vying for it and they have apparently told him if its the case that the other drivers accept then Alg will take a 3rd or reserve driver roll. The drivers in question are apparently senna and rogro, who are waiting to hear about the 2nd lotus seat before deciding on anything else.

Algs apparently told them of he isn't racing he isn't interested which is why he is testing DTM

Officialmini drivers twitter has also posted the same rumor too, so must be doing the rounds

Senna in a Lotus??? thats got to be wrong.

I doubt he will be he also probably doesn't want to agree a force India seat if he believes he has a chance to get in the lotus.

Didn't see the last 8 rounds of 2011 then?

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Interesting one, thanks for sharing this.

Senna didn't leave Williams. Williams kicked him out.

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It's interesting in reading the rumors and comments/updates from different drivers, in that it seems like right now its a matter of dominos with possible agreements reached but teams waiting to see if they will get their preferred driver before going with one of the others they've talked with.

So I'm wondering.... who is the first domino they are waiting on?

Team wise, I can see drivers waiting on Lotus to decide its 2nd seat with that most likely being the preferred choice of every available driver.

But the driver part of the equation seems the most difficult to figure out.

I think its down to cash they don't view the midfield drivers as being able to influence the wcc as much so say algs sen kob bia kov although some will outscore others in the same car will it be enough to jump up 2-3 places in the wcc to get the money that would cover the potential sponsorship. So say algs brings just an example £8m but senna brings £20m would the points algs get be enough over what senna would get to justify passing up on £12m, i like how teams say we don't want pay drivers we go for the best package... Translates into we want the best balance of cash and performance, the less cash they bring they must be drastically better than the ones that do if they are of similar abilities the one with sponsor will win out. I think it all falls on what lotus decide then others will quickly drop into place

Would be interesting if, say, Force India were faster than Lotus next year. They were faster in Brazil so why not?

But i would have though kov would have a drive by now if he was going to get one as he has said he wont go out and get sponsorship, if a team wanted to take someone on performance rather than sponsor package as well he would surely have been signed by now, but i view it along these lines
lotus: must decide between gro, sen, kov, kob, alg
Force India: waiting to hear who gets lotus seat and will probably go for algs, senna
Caterham: waiting on Force India to decide on gvg or have others with backing and more f1 exp like sen or alg

I know it's easy but you forgot Di Resta.

More wrong than the end of 2011.... or more wrong than Senna in a Williams....

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true they haven't officially announced it yet but already confirmed his pr commitments in feb for FI so i am pretty sure unless he is holding out for lotus its a done deal

It probably won't happen but it'll be interesting to see how Senna performs if he does get a seat in Lotus. He seemed to be improving towards the end of the season this year.

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I think you're probably right with Force India. I believe it was on the totalf1 site or pitpass site that Alg said he was just waiting to hear back from the team, which makes me think the choice must be Senna, then Alguersuari if it cannot get Bruno. (Though I wonder if Grosjean might not be of interest if he's out at Lotus as his strength is speed, and that seemed to be where Force India made strides late in the year, he could be a driver to maximize that... if he can learn to stay on the tract and stop hitting moving objects.)

i think that Bruno Senna would be actually a good package both for Lotus and Force India. (they are both in financial problems)

He brings 20 + mln; he showed very good racecraft (10 times in points, starting from the back) but he failed to maximize Pirelli's potential, expecially in qualify.
Next year, Pirelli's performance window will be extended, so i think that he can have a big step forward in single lap performance too.

So it seems we're basically looking at three of Grosjean, Senna, Alguersuari, Kobayashi and Kovalainen filling out the seats at Lotus, Force India and Caterham, and them being filled in that order. Perhaps including variables like Sutil/Bianchi at Force India, Van Der Garde at Caterham (although I still maintain that would be a really poor decision, but that's another topic) and maybe even Valsecchi with Lotus (based purely on him having an impressive YDT with them, as I've seen nothing actually linking him with that seat, or indeed any 2013 seat).

Grosjean/Lotus, Senna/Force India, Alguersuari/Caterham for me, although I wouldn't be surprised to see Senna/Caterham and Alguersuari/Force India.

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According to Autosport, Grosjean's destiny to be defined this week.

Totalf1 broke down the battle for the final seats this way, earlier today...

Lotus contenders: Grosjean, D'Ambrosio, Kovalainen

Force India: Sutil, Alguesuari, Senna, Buemi, Bianchi

Caterham: van der Garde, Kovalainen, Petrov, Senna, Kobi, Ma

Marussia: Chilton, Petrov, Kobi, Ma


That's really different than how I was thinking, in that Senna would not be in contention for a seat at Lotus. (Which if also true, would mean he wasn't holding up Alg at Force India as I would think Senna would prefer that seat over Caterham... so if he's not #1 on FI's list, does that make Sutil the 1st consideration?)

If that's an accurate picture, I'd also think it means Lotus is very divided over Grosjean's future. They certainly wouldn't be waiting on D'Ambrosio before making a decision on Grosjean... and other than maybe doubting an All-Finn tandem and that it might be a negative to broadening sponsorship, I wouldn't see a hold up with Heikki... if Lotus wanted him, surely he would go if its down to Lotus or Caterham as his choices. So it wouldn't seem that its Kovalainen's choice to make at Lotus or it would be done already. Which I'm guessing makes Romain's future the hold up if I'm reading it right.

Among the young 9and not so young) 'also ran' drivers, one cannot help getting the feeling that some have potential to achieve something worthwhile in a good car. For me, Hulkenburg, Algersuari and now Senna give that feeling. I think those drivers deserve a chance.

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i find a few of these hard yo understand D'Amb was less than impressive during his outing at Monza in a strong lotus and sutil although liked by force India wont be able to take part most likely in 3 gps

Do you actually have hard evidence of that, or are you basing it on the media speculation? Even if they did 'kick him out', why exactly would that matter? What the heck has that got to do with my post?

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I think Senna deserves a seat, but I also think RoGro and Koba come ahead of him, perhaps Senna is best off proving himself at one of the rear-end teams.