Stepping away from the current season for a moment, there is a hell of driver merry-go-round looming. I thought Hamilton to Ferrari might spark it off but it's still waiting get properly going. These are the drivers with contracts expiring at the end of the current season...
Sergio Perez
Carlos Sainz
Fernando Alonso
Pierre Gasly
Esteban Ocon
Alex Albon
Logan Sargeant
Daniel Ricciardo
Yuki Tsunoda
Valtteri Bottas
Zhou Guanyu
Kevin Magnussen
Nico Hulkenberg
Stroll and Leclerc don't have publicly known contract-end dates but neither will be going anywhere. Any guesses on where drivers will end up? There's hundreds of permutations, you also have up and coming drivers looking for a seat too. Gonna be lots without seats for next year.
Some initial guesses - Williams will retain Albon and drop Sargeant. Red Bull seemingly have 3-way choice between Perez, Sainz and Ricciardo for the 2nd seat. If Perez gets strong results in Japan and China there's no reason to suggest he can't stay for 2025 but Sainz represents a better longer term option being 5 years younger. You'd have to expect if Red Bull don't recruit Sainz then Mercedes will?