After being unceremoniously dumped from a Jaguar full time drive half way through the previous season, Антонио Пиццония signed on for a test drive with Williams. Pizzonia replaced Ralf Schumacher from Германия to Italy.
Кристиано да Матта's string of disappointing results during the season was replaced by test driver Рикардо Зонта from Hungary onwards. Da Matta did not race for Toyota again and in 2005 he returned to Champ Car racing claiming that F1 was not competitive enough.
Ярно Трулли's relationship with Renault, and Team Principal Flavio Briatore in particular, soured markedly after it was made clear that he would not be retained after 2004. After agreeing to terms with Toyota for 2005, Trulli and Renault agreed to part ways after the 2004 Гран-при Италии and 14 races disputed. This allowed Trulli to drive for Toyota for the final three races of 2004 and Ricardo Zonta therefore found himself demoted to test driver once again.
Toyota driver Оливье Панис indicated during the season that he was not interested in driving full time for Toyota due to personal reasons. He did express interest in working as a test driver and was consequently signed by Toyota on that basis at the end of the season. Panis raced at Sunday with three different team-mates: da Matta from Australia to Германияy, Zonta in Hungary and China, and finally Trulli in Japan.
Роберт Дорнбос was hired as a replacement test driver for Glock's position at Jordan.
Jordan driver Джорджо Пантано raced from Australia to Italy. After this race Pantano and Jordan parted ways after poor results and sponsorship problems created issues.
Тимо Глок was contracted to finish the year in the Jordan having already performed testing duties with the team that year. He was a third driver on Friday in Canada and also the race driver on Sunday, replaced Pantano at the last three races.