It's been an agonising few weeks for Rubens Barrichello. While Williams confirmed Pastor Maldonado will remain with the team for 2012 it has yet to announce who will partner him, fuelling the most hotly speculated topic since Kimi Raikkonen's return to the sport.

In fact, Raikkonen was one of the drivers linked with the Brazilian's seat, however, as Pitpass revealed, a decision on Williams drivers was made prior to the Japanese Grand Prix in early October - a point not denied by the team.

With Raikkonen confirmed with Lotus speculation linked Adrian Sutil, Vitaly Petrov and Bruno Senna to the still vacant Williams drive. Such speculation is inconsistent with what is understood on the driver front; if Williams had secured its line-up back in October, and all three of those drivers remain actively looking for a drive to this day, it seems safe to assume none of them will be in the garage alongside Maldonado when the circus hits Albert Park in March.

Much of the speculation over Barrichello's future has related to finance, however since the 2011 season ended it's understood Barrichello has secured as much as $5million in funding, matching what the likes of Sutil, Petrov and Senna could potentially offer. Writing on Twitter over the holidays, Barrichello was upbeat, the 39-year-old claiming he was "waiting on good news from Williams."

The Brazilian's good news will spell bad news for those drivers left looking for a drive. With the only open berth looking to be that at HRT there are precious few opportunities for drivers remaining - perhaps none since Jaime Alguersuari has been closely linked with the Spanish outfit.