Surprising absolutely no one, it has been officially confirmed that Sebastian Vettel will be a Ferrari driver next year, pairing up with Kimi Raikkonen.

Fernando Alonso's future is still a matter of speculation, as are those of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen. All three have been linked with McLaren for next year, but none have been confirmed. And nor will they be, until some unspecified date after 1 December.

The news that McLaren would be delaying their driver announcement until after the end of the season understandably led to some criticism for the team.

First, should Button be the man to lose his seat, the Briton - who is one of the longest-serving drivers in Formula One history, behind only Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher, making him the longest-serving driver never to have raced for Ferrari - will be unable to celebrate his last race in the sport. Much like Williams robbed Barrichello of the same at the end of 2011...

Second, and more importantly, whichever of the three the team chooses not to sign will have been left high and dry when it comes to finding a replacement seat for 2015, almost all the other cockpits having already been filled (and with four fewer options to begin with).

Do teams have a moral obligation to those men who have served them well? It is clear that there is no contractual obligation worth the paper it is written on, but then F1 contracts have never seemed to mean much anyway. In the real world, unless you are found guilty of gross misconduct, an employee is afforded a legally binding notice period before being sent on their way, to give them a chance to find alternative work. Similarly, employees must give their employers notice before moving on.

Formula One may be far divorced from the real world, but it is bordering on the ridiculous for an industry to exist in which contracts are seen as simply the starting point for negotiations and which allows long-serving employees to be given the boot at precisely the time when all other avenues are closed to them.

If the Grand Prix Drivers' Association [GPDA] wishes to be an organisation deserving of the name, it - and newly-appointed chairman Alex Wurz - should begin to investigate whether there is anything that can be done to safeguard the rights of drivers as employees, particularly given that all current teams are based in EU countries which have legislation protecting said rights.

Following its inception in 1961, the GPDA did excellent work to improve safety standards at circuits with a view to saving the lives of its members. Progress was slow initially, as part of the work involved changing the attitudes of the era, but the GPDA was a meaningful body that safeguarded the interests of its members.

Since its reformation in 1994 - when the FIA was itself making a concerted effort to improve safety standards, one that has continued to this day - the GPDA has done little of note. There were the 2013 threats to organise a boycott of the German Grand Prix following the exploding tyre fiasco which was that year's British Grand Prix, and following the embarrassment of Indianapolis 2005 the members (but not chairman Michael Schumacher) signed a letter in support of the Michelin-shod teams. And that's been about it, really.

In the circumstances, it is understandable that GPDA membership is not taken up by all drivers. There is currently little to suggest that membership of the body delivers much in exchange for the money required to join. That could change, however, if its politically astute chairman uses his new role to push for greater legal protection of the rights of his members. It may be too late for Woking's spare man, but it is an idea whose time has come.

By Kate Walker

Kate Walker is a senior F1 writer for Crash.net. A member of the F1 travelling circus since 2010, she keeps an eye on the behind the scenes wheeling and dealing that makes Formula One a political melodrama.