8 open seats… who will fill them?

With about 1 month to the initial 2010 Paul Ricard test, 8 seats are still available, the most coveted still being the second spots at both Racing Engineering and Arden.  The RE spot is highly rumored to be for Dani Clos, who must be having an issue closing the final budget numbers. Apart from that, 2 spots at Rapax and Trident, plus 1 seat at Coloni and DPR.

Bets are on regarding who will have the necessary budget in the coming weeks to be at the PR test.

The key ex-GP2 drivers out there include Luca Filippi, Javi Villa, Alvaro Parente, Karun Chandhok, Luiz Razia, Roldan Rodriguez, Pastor Maldonado and Johnny Cecotto.

Of the new guys that could joing the show, Bertrand Baguette is the one at the top of everyone’s lists, with few other new guys sounding at all.  James Jakes seemed to be getting into the GP2 groove, but has once again disappeared from our radar.  Maybe some of the Asia guys will roll over into Europe, but things are looking tough for the GP2 backmarkers, once again.

Even with Bruno Michel’s brilliant plan to limit the grid to 12 teams by making it clear to any new investor that it would be a bad idea to join in 2010, teams are still struggling to make ends meet.   Even though a last-minute rush is not new to many of these teams, this year there seems to be less drivers out there and the final seats will be tough to fill with any decent cash.

The next 10 days should bring around some interesting news…