Formula 1's silly season often rolls into life as soon as the European stint of the campaign gets underway, but as Motorsport Week suggests, this year it should be quite a quiet one…
Remember the summer of 2018? Much of Europe basked in a glorious heatwave. Football, for a while, really was coming home. And the Formula 1 driver market went a little bit mad.
Moves that seemed improbable were suddenly happening and there were all sorts of combinations and machinations that resulted in a domino effect that led to a soap opera for several months.
Daniel Ricciardo really did drop a yellow-and-black bombshell by joining Renault, Fernando Alonso really did finally call it a day, and then Kimi Raikkonen really did re-join Sauber Motorsport, a move that first seemed preposterously unlikely when it was first mooted a few months prior. There was even a very real possibility that several moves could have happened during the season. As it was, just two teams stuck with the same line-up year-on-year.
It created intrigue for journalists not to mention dozens upon dozens of column inches that were savoured by fans. The driver market is one of the most-tracked narratives through a season.
But don’t expect anywhere near as much to happen this year. Sorry.
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The last time there was such a crazy silly season (2009/10) it came after a sedate one (2008/09) and was followed by a relatively stable one (2010/11) – albeit the latter still having multiple changes at the lower end of the grid.
There is the usual caveat of contracts not always being worth the paper they’re written on, but half of the drivers are currently under contract to their current teams for 2020.
They include the perceived big three of Formula 1 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
Elsewhere Vettel’s team-mate Charles Leclerc is on a long-term Ferrari deal (up to 2022), Daniel Ricciardo is under lock and key to Renault, the evergreen Kimi Raikkonen will continue beyond the age of 40 with Alfa Romeo, Kevin Magnussen has a two-year Haas deal, while Mercedes-backed George Russell is on a multi-year Williams agreement. Carlos Sainz Jr. is also on a medium-term deal, at McLaren, with the impression being that this is until 2020. Lance Stroll has a seat for as long as he desires at Racing Point – or for as long as it makes business sense for his father to keep him in the seat. His deal is “long term”.
What of the rest?
Valtteri Bottas is understood to hold a 1+1 deal with Mercedes; his form through the end of 2018 was concerning but his bright start to 2019 leaves him in better stead (albeit with little leverage, so it’ll probably rumble on for a while) – which in turn is bad news for Esteban Ocon, currently twiddling his thumbs on the side lines. Over at Red Bull Pierre Gasly has had a shaky start but, given the lack of viable alternatives, and the fact he was thrust to the senior team earlier than expected, it would be remiss, at this stage, to even consider a replacement.
Another youngster, Lando Norris, has been guided by McLaren and he will surely still be donning the orange-and-blue overalls in 2020, given his long-term potential and the faith already shown by the team – and close affiliate Zak Brown.
At Haas, Romain Grosjean sufficiently recovered from his early 2018 slump to be handed a 2019 contract. Unless he suffers another dip in form then there’s little reason to expect any change there. Gene Haas loves real racers and he has that in his current pairing. Longer term an American driver has been mooted, but not yet. If they didn’t want Josef Newgarden or Alexander Rossi for 2019, it’s not going to change for 2020. And why would those two want to give up excellent IndyCar rides anyway?
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Racing Point? Well, the dependable Sergio Perez is a perfect fit for the Silverstone-based outfit. He has finished in the top 10 in each season with the team, including ‘best of the rest’ on two of those occasions, bagging five podiums on the way. It is an underrated achievement. Unless he has a falling out with either the senior management, his team-mate, or the owner(s) become less reliant on his sponsorship, it seems churlish to expect him to depart.
Perez’s erstwhile team-mate Nico Hulkenberg is in the final season of his three-year Renault deal but would surely need to be soundly beaten by Ricciardo (which is not yet happening) for the manufacturer to dump him. The alternative is if Renault is sufficiently drawn towards Ocon (young, French, fast) to consider him a better long-term prospect than Hulkenberg. It had Ocon on loan in 2016 and wanted him for 2019 until it jumped on Ricciardo. But that is pure speculation.
Toro Rosso? Alexander Albon has had an eye-catching start to his Formula 1 career and, historically, Red Bull gives drivers more than one year at a junior team. The relatively rapid hired-fired nature of Brendon Hartley’s short-lived F1 stint is the exception rather than the norm. The unknown is Dan Ticktum. If he has a sufficiently mature and encouraging season in Red Bull’s simulator, on track in any tests, and on track in Japan, then Helmut Marko may be swayed towards the young Briton. A potential outlier is Liam Lawson. Already an F4 runner-up and Toyota Racing Series champion the New Zealander, 17, could thrust himself into contention if he wins the F3 title.
The stability may also be assisted by two other factors: the recent surge of youngsters and the lack of stand-out options below Formula 1 level now that (most of) a richly-talented generation have made the grade. Gasly, Stroll (2017), Leclerc (2018), Norris, Russell and Albon (2019) have all joined the grid, while the likes of Verstappen and Sainz Jr. are still on the youthful side of their mid-20s. Daniil Kvyat (still not 25), Antonio Giovinazzi (25) and Magnussen (26) can also be realistically added to that roster. Some of them have filled a void left by the exits of Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa and Alonso (whose own future was a mini-series in itself each season) in recent years. It is a natural cyclical occurrence. The top crop in Formula 2 can always stake a claim for a Formula 1 seat – given sufficiently impressive performances and most likely the right financial backing – but for 2020 that is looking a harder proposition. Mick Schumacher is the obvious candidate, given his F3 title and name, but there is no rush.
So, sorry everyone. Maybe there’ll be a smattering of changes, but we’ve ruined the anticipation of silly season. For 2019 at least.
Come the summer of 2020 the aforementioned drivers – aside from Leclerc – will be on the market for 2021. Now that could be a bit more fun…