If we look at the last ten years, the team starting the new season with most new drivers is Minardi. The Faenza based team have changed no less than 16 drivers at the beginning of seasons. The other Italian team, Ferrari, are on the other end of the spectrum. With only Michael Schumacher, Eddie Irvine and Rubens Barrichello moving there over the last ten years, it's the team with the least moves. Like Ferrari, McLaren also have employed three new drivers over the past ten years: Mark Blundell, David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen.

Driver changes per team
-----------------------
Team                 Changes + confirmed 2005
Minardi              16
Sauber               12      + 1
Jordan               11
Arrows               11
Tyrrell/BAR           8
Williams              7      + 2
Benetton/Renault      7      + 1
Ligier/Prost          6
Stewart/Jaguar        5      + 1
Toyota                4      + 1
Forti                 4
McLaren               3      + 1
Ferrari               3
Lola                  2

With the line-up of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello unchanged since 2000, Ferrari has the most stable couple. The longest running driver/team combinations are Michael Schumacher/Ferrari and David Coulthard/McLaren. While the German continues in Maranello, the Scot's racing days with McLaren are coming to an end at the end of this season. The only other driver to have been with his team since before the turn of the century is Ralf Schumacher, who is also changing places at the end of 2004.

Of the drivers who started the season with a new team, Giancarlo Fisichella is the real journeyman. The Italian started the new season with a new team no less than five times. In 1996 he made his debut at Minardi. The following year he moved to Jordan and a year later to Benetton. In 2002 he then moved back to Jordan, followed by a move to Sauber last year. This year Fisichella's on the move again, now to Renault.

Sharing the journeyman trophy with Fisichella is Dutchman Jos Verstappen. He too started the season with a different team five times, moving to Simtek, Arrows, Tyrrell, Arrows again and finally Minardi.

Mika Salo, Pedro Diniz and Heinz-Harald Frentzen follow them with four moves, while seven drivers started the new season with a new employer three times.

Team changes per driver
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Driver                  Changes  + confirmed 2005
Giancarlo Fisichella    5        + 1
Jos Verstappen          5
Heinz-Harald Frentzen   4
Mika Salo               4
Pedro Diniz             4
Jarno Trulli            3        + 1
Jean Alesi              3
Jenson Button           3
Luca Badoer             3
Nick Heidfeld           3
Ricardo Rosset          3

With only seven drivers confirmed to stay where they are, the possibility exists that 13 of the 20 drivers change places. With 65% of the drivers changed, that beats the changes between 1995 and 1996. Back then, 14 of the 22 seats in the first race of the new season were occupied by different faces, making it 63.6% change.

The similarity between now and nine years ago is remarkable. While the 2005 season, like 1996, will possibly start with around two thirds change, both seasons before those high figures were marked by a very low number of changes. 1995 started with 9 changes in 26 seats, while the 2004 season saw seven new faces in the 20 available seats. Both figures are close to 35%.

Driver changes per year
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Year             Changes  Seats
1994 -> 1995        9      26  (34.6%)
1995 -> 1996       14      22  (63.6%)
1996 -> 1997       14      24  (58.3%)
1997 -> 1998        9      22  (40.9%)
1998 -> 1999       11      22  (50.0%)
1999 -> 2000        9      22  (40.9%)
2000 -> 2001       10      22  (45.5%)
2001 -> 2002        9      22  (40.9%)
2002 -> 2003       10      20  (50.0%)
2003 -> 2004        7      20  (35.0%)

Williams will definitely change both drivers for the coming season, likely joined by Toyota. Both teams have changed both drivers once before in the last ten years: Toyota did so at the beginning of the 2003 season and Williams in 1999. Whether it's a wise decision to change both drivers remains to be seen.

In the last ten years both drivers were changed on 24 occasions, not counting new entries. In only six cases this has led to a better points total than the previous season. This might increase to ten at the end of this season: Minardi has already scored more than last season, while Sauber is just one point short of last year's total. Jordan, with five points compared to 13 last year, will have to work very hard to improve their total. Whatever the outcome of this season, it remains less than half of the double switches that deliver instant improvement.

Obviously, most double changes happen in the lower end of the field, where the teams are more likely to seek desperate measures to increase performance. Only five teams that scored more than twenty points have changed both drivers.

The Benetton team suffered two dramatic falls after having changed both drivers. First in 1996, when they took on both ex-Ferrari drivers Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger to replace Michael Schumacher and Johnny Herbert, and then two years later when Giancarlo Fisichella and Alexander Wurz replaced the aforementioned duo. The first change saw the team fall from 137 to 68 points, while the second change saw them halve their total from 67 to 33 points.

Both Williams in 1999 and Ferrari in 1996 limited their damage to a three point drop from respectively 38 and 73 points. Jordan was the only team to actually improve from an over twenty point season with two new drivers. When the team exchanged Rubens Barrichello and Martin Brundle for Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralf Schumacher in 1997, they jumped from 22 to 33 points.

For drivers, progress clearly depends largely on the team they are moving to. The driver to score the most points in his first season with a new team was Jacques Villeneuve at Williams in 1996, with 78 points. He is followed by Fernando Alonso, who scored 55 in his first year with Renault (2003) and David Coulthard who scored 49 in his first full season at Williams, back in 1995. Of course, Coulthard had already driven the majority of the previous season with Williams, but as Nigel Mansell finished the season there, Coulthard was effectively a new driver in the seat of the Williams at the beginning of the 1995 season.

The biggest improvement from a full season with one team to a full season with another team was made by Rubens Barrichello, when he moved from Stewart to Ferrari at the start of the 2000 season. The Brazilian scored 62 points in his first year at Ferrari - a 41 point improvement over his last year with Stewart.

The biggest falls are obviously for those who left a top team. Seven drivers in the last ten years ended up twenty or more points less than their tally in the previous season, with their old team. Record holder is Damon Hill, who moved from Williams to Arrows after his 97-points World Championship year to score a mere seven points, good for a 90 point drop. Second, with a 70 point drop is Eddie Irvine in 2000, when he moved from Ferrari to Jaguar. Third biggest fall is for Michael Schumacher: when the German moved from Benetton to Ferrari, he fell from 102 to 59 points.

Since 1995, there have been 104 moves. Forty eight of those resulted in an increase in points for the driver; 37 times there was no change; and 19 times the driver's points total decreased with the new team. That's 46% increase, 36% unchanged and just 18% decrease.