With only six races remaining in the 2003 season, the Silly Season is moving at full swing, with several drivers still to find out where their future lies. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen reviews the current crop and suggests where everybody should go next year

By the time you read this, Patrick Head will have briefed the entire Williams staff at Grove on the team's second consecutive one-two victory in a Formula One race. He took them through the entire weekend, from first qualifying to the last laps of the race, describing in detail what went right and what didn't. There won't have been much of the latter; the BMW Williams outfit scarcely put a wheel wrong at Magny-Cours. But Head's deeper insights into every aspect of the blue-and-white operation penetrated all aspects of the squad's operations, picking up and reporting the glitches that stood in the way of an even more dominant performance.

After the briefing, Patrick Head took questions from his team on a wide range of topics. Some of them touched on the speculation about next season's driver pairings, because Formula One's Silly Season starts revving up right about now. The buzz is especially loud this year because seven drivers run out of contract at the end of this season. They are Jacques Villeneuve, David Coulthard, Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Antonio Pizzonia and Jos Verstappen. In addition, it seems likely that Giancarlo Fisichella will be a free agent after Jordan forced a halving of his pay for 2003, against the terms of his contract. That produces a lot of players for the next round of musical chairs.

So it's an opportune time to take a look at our current class of drivers and to try to see whom should be picked for what team and why. Or - to look at it differently - to try to scope the field the way the teams do - or should do. I'm going to start with the flat statement that 36 is old enough for a Formula One driver these days. Yes, I know that Nigel Mansell was a winner at the age of 40 in what passes for the modern game, but he was an exception. By the age of 36 you should have given your best to the sport and have served your teams with the full advantage of the racing know-how you've acquired.

With many drivers entering Formula One in their early 20s, much of that know-how is now being gained during Grand Prix seasons - somewhat to the dismay of present incumbents. "What's happening with the younger guys is that they haven't got the experience of the lower formulas now," said David Coulthard after his nasty avoidance of a slowing Fernando Alonso at the Nurburgring. "The mistakes that you made in the lower formulas, you now make in Formula One. If you're going to lift, you should pull off line. I had to do that [referring to Spa in 1998 and his tangle with Michael] to learn that I shouldn't do that."

Of course karting plays a big role in the development of today's drivers, and they learn a lot on the kart tracks before at least a year or two of seasoning in minor formulae. But as Coulthard says, there's still a lot to learn - especially about today's high-tech Grand Prix cars. So age has significant value. But there's a point at which strength, fitness, eyesight and reactions must give way to Father Time. The modern record shows that in Formula One that point is reached for the majority of drivers by 36.

With that in mind, let's take a look at the ages of our current drivers, together with some other parameters. They stack up as follows:

                                F1      POINTS   F1   
                                ENTRY   PER      YEARS
                         AGE    AGE     YEAR     LEFT 
Alonso, Fernando         21     19      20       15   
Pizzonia, Antonio        22     22       -       14   
Button, Jenson           23     20      13       13   
Raikkonen, Kimi          23     21      42       13   
Wilson, Justin           24     24       -       12   
Heidfeld, Nick           26     23       7       10   
Webber, Mark             26     25      11       10   
Montoya, Juan Pablo      27     25      60        9   
Schumacher, Ralf         27     21      37        9   
                                                      
Firman, Ralph            28     28       -        8   
Trulli, Jarno            28     22       9        8   
da Matta, Christiano     29     29       -        7   
Fisichella, Giancarlo    30     23      13        6   
Barrichello, Rubens      31     21      31        5   
Verstappen, Jos          31     22       2        5   
Coulthard, David         32     24      53        4   
Villeneuve, Jacques      32     25      31        4   
Schumacher, Michael      34     23      91        2   
Frentzen, Heinz-Harald   36     27      19        0   
Panis, Olivier           36     27       7        0   

When the music stops and everyone tries to grab a seat, it will be interesting to see if there's a place for Jacques Villeneuve. Though at the high end of the age range, the feisty Canadian still has something to give, and Formula One needs all the World Champions it can muster. If Toyota had a housecleaning, Jacques could be in the frame there. He'd certainly bring much-needed skill, determination and experience to that team. Villeneuve and Heidfeld at Toyota - that sounds good to me, but the Cologne outfit would then have to cease its ejection-seat driver policy and hang on to that pairing until 2007, when Jacques will be 36. That is, as I said, the end of the line for Grand Prix drivers.

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England. This autumn will see publication of Karl's long-awaited work, the update of his epic Porsche - Excellence was Expected. It reveals for the first time details of the all-conquering McLaren-TAGs and the disastrous Footwork-Porsches. Information on the book and a pre-publication discount are available at the Robert Bentley website