dotdotdotcomma.com: f1 silly season...,

REMEMBER WHERE YOU READ IT FIRST!

Yes, like us, you probably read it in AutoSprout but now you only need to look in one place to jog your memory as to who might be driving where next season, what team might be looking at which risingest young star, which anonymous egg-head will be burning the midnight oil working on improved valve-guide seals to which engine, which multi-national conglomerate will be wasting the hard-earned cash of its customers and shareholders on which square inch of decal transfer, and some other stuff.

Just look through the table below, where we use the following conventions to indicate a team's choice of drivers, test drivers, engine, tyres, sponsors, management and technicians:

•	Bold:	as near as we can tell, absolutely certain, barring a sudden change in sponsor and a big, fat, contract-breaking pay-out.
•	Normal text:	probables, possibles and outside chancers. Or downright no-hopers with good agents.
•	Struck through:	Who or what's been in contention, and then suddenly out of contention again, including this year's drivers who've been given the finger.

Items that have been added or updated within the last ten days are marked with a

, most of the column headings can be clicked to sort the table by that column and hovering over the abbreviations in the "SERIES" column will display a full explanation of that abbreviation.

SERIES	TEAM	ELEMENT	ROLE	COMMENTS

F1	Caterham	Heikki Kovalainen	Driver	His end to the 2012 season was impressive and he keeps out-qualifying his team-mate, so they're happy to keep him on.
F1	Caterham	Jarno Trulli	Driver	He probably under-performed in 2012 but he's a good asset when it comes to developing the car, which is what the team needs at the moment.
F1	Caterham	Vitaly Petrov	Driver	Although the team apparently has two drivers with contracts, there's a rumour that Petrov is in talks about taking Trulli's seat. The bounder.
F1	Caterham	Daniel Ricciardo	Driver	The Red Bull-backed driver is likely to remain on the grid for 2012 and this is one of the possibilities, given that Toro Rosso probably won't have any spare seats.
F1	Caterham	Renault	Engine	The deal has been extended to the end of 2013 and both parties currently sound as if they'd like to extend it further. Remember this moment, lads, when it all goes wrong and you want an early release.
F1	Caterham	Karun Chandhok	Test driver	It's unlikely he'll bag a race seat anywhere, so a third-driver deal looks like his best bet and he already has a relationship with the team. Perhaps not the best relationship, given that they don't want him to race for them, but it's better than nothing.
F1	Ferrari	Fernando Alonso	Driver	He's extended his contract until the end of 2016, which is an awfully long time in F1 terms. Getting on for 174 billion milliseconds, in fact.
F1	Ferrari	Felipe Massa	Driver	It's probably long enough now since his nasty accident at Hungary that the team can drop him without it seeming callous. And that, as far as we can tell, is the only reason they've kept him on for so long.
F1	Ferrari	Mark Webber	Driver	Should Felipe Massa's contract not be renewed, Webber would be a pretty good choice for a replacement. He might even manage not to spin five times at Silverstone if it rains.
F1	Ferrari	Nico Rosberg	Driver	It seems that he's being mentioned as a possible for exactly the same teams as Felipe Massa, for some reason.
F1	Ferrari	Santander	Sponsor	The evil bank will be partnering the evil F1 team until the end of 2017 at least.
F1	Ferrari	Sam Michael	Technician	He's leaving Williams at the end of the season, which so far has been their worst ever. If Ferrari fancy a bit of that kind of performace, we'd welcome it.
F1	Force India	Nico Hulkenberg	Driver	He's had a year off racing and has spent it trying to convince the team to give him another go. He's a good prospect, as much as it pains us to admit it.
F1	Force India	Paul di Resta	Driver	They've got at least three good options for their two race seats but the Scot seems pretty confident he'll be in one of them. He may be dull as ditchwater out of the cockpit but he's pretty handy in it.
F1	Force India	Adrian Sutil	Driver	A strong end to the season has improved his 2012 prospects but he's up against some stiff competition. And he's got silly hair.
F1	Force India	Jules Bianchi	Test driver	The frenchman remains part of Ferrari's young driver programme, giving us two reasons to dislike him, and is now Force India's reserve driver too.
F1	HRT	Narain Karthikeyan	Driver	Really? Wait. Really?
F1	HRT	Pedro de la Rosa	Driver	Well, blow me down. Pedro's got himself back into a race seat. He's agreed a two-year deal with the team. What is it with drivers in their forties? Schumacher, Barrichello and now de la Rosa. Maybe there's still hope for us.
F1	HRT	Daniel Ricciardo	Driver	He might stay where he raced in 2011 but it's more likely he'll move on somewhere.
F1	HRT	Luis Perez-Sala	Management	The former Minardi driver steps into the shoes just vacated by Colin Kolles. He's the new team principal, in other words.
F1	HRT	Colin Kolles	Management	He's left the team because they're relocating to Spain and will no longer need his factory in Germany. At least he's got dentistry to fall back on.
F1	Lotus	Kimi Raikkonen	Driver	Wow. Didn't see that one coming. He's signed a two-year deal to return to F1 and it's not with Williams. How did they keep that secret? No matter. Welcome back, Kimi.
F1	Lotus	Romain Grosjean	Driver	Eric Boullier likes him, possibly because he's french, but we're not so keen, possibly because he's french.
F1	Lotus	Adrian Sutil	Driver	He'll probably lose his Force India seat to Hulkenberg, so he may pitch up here. He's meant to be very good but he doesn't exactly set the track alight.
F1	Lotus	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Driver	His seat's under threat from Romain Grosjean, of all people. He's got silly hair. There's no place in F1 for him.
F1	Lotus	Nick Heidfeld	Driver	He races well but qualifies not so well, which means that he's more likely to be let go than his team-mate.
F1	Lotus	Robert Kubica	Driver	If he's anywhere near recovered enough to drive an F1 car, the team will put him in it.
F1	Lotus	Vitaly Petrov	Driver	He has a contract for 2012 and he's driving a lot better in 2011 than he did in 2010, so he probably deserves his seat. His manager scares us, though.
F1	Lotus	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Test driver	While he's looking for a race seat somewhere, he's also in the running for a third-driver role at Lotus. Robert Kubica ruled himself out pre-season last year and Kimi almost did the same in December, so it's not a bad back-up plan.
F1	Marussia	Charles Pic	Driver	He'll graduate from GP2 straight to a race seat, which leaves Jerome D'Ambrosio out of a drive.
F1	Marussia	Timo Glock	Driver	He's signed a three-year deal, so he's committed to the former Virgin team until 2014.
F1	Marussia	Romain Grosjean	Driver	He could replace fellow Gravity-managed Jerome d'Ambrosio as a warm-up for a future Renault drive. Is he really that good?
F1	McLaren	Jenson Button	Driver	He's in the middle of a multi-year deal. No question about this one.
F1	McLaren	Lewis Hamilton	Driver	He has a contract with the team until the end of 2012, so unless he's going to try to wriggle out of it Jenson-style, this is where he should be.
F1	McLaren	Sam Michael	Management	He seems to have resigned from Williams for cocking things up and then been snapped up by McLaren as their new sporting director. Are we missing something here?
F1	McLaren	Gary Paffett	Test driver	He's a strong contender for dullest man in top-flight motorsport but the team clearly rates his ability and they've extended his contract - or possibly contracted his extension - for another year.
F1	Mercedes GP	Michael Schumacher	Driver	The team love him, even if he's not actually that good these days.
F1	Mercedes GP	Nico Rosberg	Driver	He'll be with the team until at least the end of 2013, with options for 2014. There wasn't really anywhere else he could go.
F1	Mercedes GP	Paul di Resta	Driver	He's only completed three races for Force India but he's already being linked with a drive at the team in the future. Could he be the one to nick Michael Schumacher's seat?
F1	Mercedes GP	Aldo Costa	Management	He left Ferrari as technical director after a disappointing start to 2011 and now he's pitched up at Mercedes, where he'll no doubt help them to a disappointing 2012.
F1	Mercedes GP	Geoff Willis	Management	Geoff continues his mission to work for every F1 team on the grid by joining Mercedes as Technology Director.
F1	Mercedes GP	Sam Michael	Technician	After resigning from Williams, he was never likely to be short of job offers and Mercedes are one of the first teams to express an interest.
F1	Red Bull	Mark Webber	Driver	He's on a rolling year-by-year contract and the team may have their own reasons for choosing not to renew, such as, for instance, he gets a bit too close to beating his annointed team-mate.
F1	Red Bull	Sebastian Vettel	Driver	They've got him until the end of 2014, by which time he might have grown into his face.
F1	Red Bull	Felipe Massa	Driver	No, no, no. Absolutely not. But someone mentioned it, so we have to report it.
F1	Red Bull	Jaime Alguersuari	Driver	If Mark Webber ends up not staying, the team might promote one of its young drivers from the sister team.
F1	Red Bull	Lewis Hamilton	Driver	He's just engaged a new management team and all parties are denying the rumour, so there's bound to be some truth in it.
F1	Red Bull	Nico Rosberg	Driver	It would depend on Mark Webber making space but he wouldn't be a bad replacement.
F1	Red Bull	Sebastien Buemi	Driver	There may just be a vacancy for him if Mark Webber leaves.
F1	Red Bull	Sebastien Buemi	Test driver	He's apparently not good enough to race for Toro Rosso but he is acceptable as the reserve driver for the main team. Every cloud, Seb mate.
F1	Sauber	Kamui Kobayashi	Driver	This is "very pleased" with both its drivers, so a year's extension has been agreed. Good news all round, we think.
F1	Sauber	Sergio Perez	Driver	He signed a multi-year deal in 2011, which is unusual for a rookie, so he's definitely racing in 2012.
F1	Sauber	Esteban Gutierrez	Test driver	He's being retained after winning GP3. Let's see how he does in GP2.
F1	Team Lotus	Caterham	Team	The disputed "Lotus" name will be given up in favour of the name of a car company that Tony Fernandes does actually have the rights to.
F1	Toro Rosso	Daniel Ricciardo	Driver	Franz Tost has hinted heavily that this will happen. Not sure whose seat he'll be taking but both of them must be nervous.
F1	Toro Rosso	Jean-Eric Vergne	Driver	He impressed enough in the Red Bull at the young driver test in Abu Dhabi to get a race seat with the junior team. I think we're now over the quota for french F1 drivers, so can we stop?
F1	Toro Rosso	Jaime Alguersuari	Driver	He hasn't set the F1 world alight but he's probably convinced the team to keep him on.
F1	Toro Rosso	Sebastien Buemi	Driver	He's probably done just enough to keep his seat for 2012.
F1	Toro Rosso	CEPSA	Sponsor	The oil giant will continue its sponsorship of the team in 2012. Can't say we'd ever noticed them before.
F1	Virgin	Marussia	Team	One of several team name changes for the 2012 season.
F1	Williams	Bruno Senna	Driver	Williams and the Senna name don't have a happy history but it depends how superstitious Bruno is.
F1	Williams	Pastor Maldonado	Driver	He's virtually certain to retain his seat, not least because his PDVSA backing brings over £20 million. Erm..., wow.
F1	Williams	Adrian Sutil	Driver	Adrian Sutil? Williams cars used to be driven by gods...,
F1	Williams	Giedo van der Garde	Driver	The team is looking at pay drivers and Giedo could bring a sizeable wad of cash with him.
F1	Williams	Kimi Raikkonen	Driver	It's said that he's visited the factory to discuss a possible return to racing, although the team favours someone who could bring some cash. Kimi in a Williams? Yes, please.
F1	Williams	Rubens Barrichello	Driver	He'd like a new deal but says he has "other things going on in F1" if it doesn't come off. If you say so, Rubinho.
F1	Williams	Renault	Engine	They've inked a deal for 2012 and 2013 but they say it's not for nostalgic reasons. We're inclined to believe them - Red Bull have been doing pretty well recently with Renault powerplants, so they can't be at all bad.
F1	Williams	Patrick Head	Management	He announced that he was leaving the F1 team some time ago but he officially left at the end of 2011. He'll be doing stuff with hybrid energy systems now.
F1	Williams	AT&T	Sponsor	The title-sponsorship deal, in place since 2007, came to an end on December 31st 2011, so the team is currently looking for a replacement. Something else in telecommunications is the rumour.
F1	Williams	Sam Michael	Technician	After the first two races of the season, the technical director tendered his resignation and it was accepted. Never ones for sentiment, the Williams top brass.
F1	Williams	Valtteri Bottas	Test driver	The Finn will drive in 15 of the Friday practice sessions in 2012 and will no doubt also spend an awful lot of time becoming nauseous in the team's simulator.

IRL	KV Racing	Rubens Barrichello	Driver	His wife's told him "no ovals" but he's having a test with them anyway. Frosty atmosphere chez Barrichello ahoy!

LeM	Rebellion Racing	Nick Heidfeld	Driver	He's signed a deal to race in the FIA's World Endurance Championship and Le Mans too. Some might say that he's the perfect driver for endurance racing and they might even mean it as a compliment too.

KEY TO SERIES NAMES (hovering over the abbreviations in the table above also shows the full series name)
F1	Formula 1 The world's most prominent, most expensive and frequently most tedious single-seater series.
IRL	Indy Racing League Classic Mickey-Mouse racing of the first water.
LeM	Le Mans-style Endurance Racing Very, very, very long races. Woo! They're long. Not to be confused with Lemon-Style Endurance Racing. Nasty.