5 Formula 1 Drivers Most at Risk of Losing Their Seat for 2016

We're less than a third of the way through the 2015 Formula One season, but the vultures are already circling Kimi Raikkonen.

Qualifying struggles have seen the Finn comprehensively outshone by Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel, and rumours linking his countryman Valtteri Bottas to the Scuderia refuse to go away.

But Raikkonen isn't the only driver whose 2016 plans are far from certain. Mediocre performances and a lack of sponsorship are threatening more than one of his fellow racers; others are under pressure, perhaps through no fault of their own, from the sport's brightest rising stars.

And, unfortunately, it's those on the grid for their talent, not the size of their sponsors' wallets, who look most at risk.

Kimi Raikkonen spent the 2014 being comprehensively blown away by Fernando Alonso. So far this season, the deficit to his team-mate has been smaller—but it's still large enough to cause concern.

The primary problem facing the Finn is his lack of single-lap pace. This never seemed to be an issue early in his career, but since moving to Ferrari, Raikkonen has consistently failed to produce the goods on Saturdays.

Sebastian Vettel is the only driver on the grid who has started every single race ahead of his team-mate. The four-time champion's average grid slot is 2.83; Raikkonen's is 6.5.

It's not that Raikkonen has lost his nerve or edge (not all of it, anyway), rather that he struggles to get the temperamental Pirelli tyres into their optimum range. Sky Sports' Mark Hughes says this is down to his driving style—he is kind to his tyres, which works against him in the short, rapid bursts of qualifying.

Long-run pace—and tyre management especially—has been his strength, and for the most part he has matched or occasionally beaten Vettel in this department.

But starting so much further down the field means he usually has no chance of achieving the same results as the German—hence the 38-point gap between the pair in the championship standings.

Ferrari have an option on Raikkonen for 2016, but their history and recent performance makes them the F1 equivalent of a rich kid in a sweet shop. There are so many wonderful choices, and they can have whichever one they want.

Valtteri Bottas has been strongly linked, as reported by ESPN, to the second Ferrari seat in 2016, with usual suspect Nico Hulkenberg's name mentioned by grandprix.com in the last week. Romain Grosjean is quick and reliable too, while Sergio Perez appears to have grown into a more complete driver since his McLaren departure.

Any of these men would be cheaper than Raikkonen, and all are younger—they could provide the Scuderia with a stable driver lineup for at least the next three years.

It's impossible to say whether any or all would get better results.

But with Raikkonen not looking capable of mounting a title challenge, Ferrari may decide they have little to lose by risking it.

Red Bull didn't really want to put Daniil Kvyat into their main team as early as they did. He was nowhere near a finished article after just a single season with Toro Rosso, but Sebastian Vettel leaving for Ferrari forced their hand.

As might have been expected, he hasn't made the best start to the year. Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo has outqualified Kvyat five times in six races and has more than twice as many points.

The statistics don't paint an entirely accurate picture. Kvyat has encountered more car trouble in competitive sessions (including in Australia, where his RB11 didn't even survive a pre-race reconnaissance lap), and the Russian has been ahead on two of the four occasions where both have finished the race.

But after five rounds, Kvyat only had five points—and after he was passed by Toro Rosso rival Carlos Sainz on the final lap of the Spanish Grand Prix, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko threw out something of a threat. He told Kleine Zeitung (h/t Autosport), "Our established guys need to look out. Paradoxically, the more inexperienced ones did the better job."

Kvyat's excellent drive to fourth in Monaco could not have come at a better time.

But aside from that, he doesn't seem to have settled into Red Bull as well as he might—and the system that saw him handed his F1 chance at just 19 years of age could now be threatening his future.

Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen have made very strong starts to the year for Toro Rosso. It's not inconceivable that one or both might be ready for a switch to the main team in 2016—and the Red Bull Junior Team has two promising candidates waiting to take their places.

Pierre Gasly was second in last season's Formula Renault 3.5 championship and currently races for DAMS in GP2, while Dean Stoneman was second in last year's GP3 series and moves to FR3.5 for 2015.

If either man has a hugely impressive season and Kvyat fails to shine, he could find himself kicked to the kerb to make way.

Roberto Merhi is an unusual and endangered species—a driver at a back-marking team who doesn't bring a big pile of sponsorship cash to the party.

The former Formula Three Euroseries champion, third in FR3.5 in 2014, was handed his F1 shot with Manor just days before the start of the new season.

He was hired for talent, not money, but with little preparation time and, per Pitpass's driver data, a substantial weight disadvantage to team-mate Will Stevens, his start to the year has not been impressive.

Merhi is yet to outqualify Stevens and has finished ahead on only one occasion—last time out in Monaco, where he finished 16th. There, it was later revealed on the official F1 website that Stevens suffered front wing damage which significantly hampered his efforts.

In the other races, the gap between the two has been large—the largest on the grid—in Stevens' favour.

Whether this is down to more than just driver performance is unclear, but there's one thing we know for certain—Merhi faces a massive struggle to stay in F1 unless he can find big-money backing.

His current seat isn't especially coveted, because the team is so far behind everyone else. But Livio Oricchio of Globo (h/t grandprix.com) reports their new, purpose-built 2015 car—complete with the much-improved 2015 Ferrari power unit—should be ready for the Belgian Grand Prix.

If the MR04 proves more competitive, Merhi is unlikely to see the end of this season, let alone the start of next.

A few years ago, Nico Hulkenberg was being linked to top-level drives. The most repeated rumour was one mentioned by Andrew Benson's BBC Sport article, linking him to the second seat at Ferrari for 2014, replacing Felipe Massa.

Though that move didn't come to pass, he then made a brilliantly consistent start to the 2014 season, scoring points in every one of the opening 10 rounds.

But Hulkenberg went off the boil and was outscored in the second half of the year by team-mate Sergio Perez. The Mexican has also made a better start to the 2015 season—so Force India, a small-to-medium-sized team, must be asking themselves a very important question.

Can they afford to keep Hulkenberg?

Force India need every penny they can get, and if their "unfunded" driver isn't performing as well as the one who brings many millions of pounds from his sponsors, it may make sense to replace him with another "talent plus sponsor" driver.

The German signed what the Independent described as a "multi-year" deal which started in 2014. However, as the team felt the need to announce, per Sky Sports, that he was being retained for 2015, it's clearly an "option" arrangement—if the team and Hulkenberg both want to continue, the deal rolls on.

If either party says no, the partnership ends.

Hulkenberg is more than good enough to remain on the grid, and his past form may yet see him in the sort of seat everyone thought he deserved at the end of 2013.

But his career could also take a more shocking and depressing turn.

If Force India decide they can't afford to keep him, it's difficult to see where else he could go.

Jenson Button's presence on this list may raise eyebrows a few centimetres and some fans' blood pressure by a little more, because he doesn't deserve to be on it.

The problem is not Button; rather, it's what McLaren have in reserve.

The 2009 world champion came within a whisker of leaving F1 at the end of 2014. In the end, the team decided to go with experience ahead of potential—his team-mate from last season, Kevin Magnussen, was the man to make way.

Button signed a new deal with McLaren reported by both the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson and BBC Sport's Andrew Benson to be for two years. However, both stated the belief that it was not a "full" two-year deal; rather, it was for one year, with the option of a second.

Such contracts are common in F1—both Button and McLaren would have to agree to keep it rolling on.

Whether this is indeed the case or if it's a "proper" two-year deal is not entirely clear, but Button himself gave a hint earlier this year. Speaking to Paul Weaver of the Guardian, he said there was a "good chance" he'd be at McLaren in 2016.

Normally that "good chance"—which suggests an option deal—would translate to near-certainty because Button is still performing well. But not only do McLaren have Kevin Magnussen seeking a return, they also have under contract the most exciting GP2 racer since Lewis Hamilton—Stoffel Vandoorne.

The Belgian finished second in his rookie year in 2014, outscoring four-year veteran and eventual champion Jolyon Palmer in the second half of the season. He set a GP2 record of six consecutive pole positions (four last year and two this year) and has won all three feature races in 2015.

He is absolutely ready for F1, and if he isn't on the 2016 grid, we'll be missing out on something special.

But unlike Red Bull and Ferrari, McLaren don't have strong links to a smaller team. As things stand, if they want to promote him—and they should—they only have one option.

Putting him in a McLaren.

In an ideal world, the coming months would see McLaren and Honda make a deal with one of the small teams for 2016. This will allow them to ease their rising star into the sport and avoid any uncomfortable Alonso-Hamilton comparisons.

But if they don't and Vandoorne continues to dominate GP2, as he seems capable of doing, Button could lose out through no fault of his own.