With the post-season Formula 1 test in Abu Dhabi, the lengthy globetrotting 2023 season came to an end and the paddock closed up shop for the year.
Present at the test were a number of rookies getting a rare chance to sample F1 machinery, but unfortunately, tests such as the one in Abu Dhabi are realistically the only chance such drivers will get of driving an F1 car in relative anger.
Getting one’s hands on a race seat in F1 is a tough task for emerging talent and with Williams confirming Logan Sargeant will race for them once again in 2024, F1 will see no off-season driver changes for the first time in its 73-year history. This remarkable fact provides a huge problem for those young hopefuls.
The F1 driver market, like the 2023 season, has officially shut up shop.
Take Theo Pourchaire for example, present at the test on behalf of Alfa Romeo, the 2023 Formula 2 champion has no option but to settle for a reserve driver role.
The same (for the second year running) can be said of 2022 F2 title winner Felipe Drugovich, who will have to make do with a second year as Aston Martin reserve driver in 2024.
Heck, even mercurial talent Oscar Piastri had to endure a year on the sidelines after winning the 2021 F2 championship as a rookie.
Talking of Piastri, his team McLaren gave its multiple IndyCar race winner Pato O’Ward a run out in the MCL60 in Abu Dhabi. However, the popular Mexican, well-loved by his Arrow McLaren IndyCar outfit and CEO Zak Brown, faces little prospect of ever acquiring an F1 drive.
O’Ward has been vocal about his love and drive for a career in F1 beyond IndyCar, but with both Piastri and Lando Norris tied down to long-term deals, his chance won’t come with the Woking-based outfit.
O’Ward, who was recently added to McLaren F1’s reserve driver pool for 2024, admitted that he would relish the prospect of a switch after succeeding with the papaya team in the States.
“For me, it’s all about – I’m fully focused on what I have to do in IndyCar because I want to give the [Indy] 500 win to McLaren,” O’Ward said in Abu Dhabi. “I want to be the one that gives it to them because I’ve been with them for four years, starting my fifth next year. We’ve been so close to a championship as well. I want to give it to the team, and to myself.
“It would be quite the Cinderella story to then tackle the challenge of Formula 1 and be a contender. Not just come here to have fun. We’re here to win, we’re not here to go out and about and enjoy what Formula 1 has to offer.”
Meanwhile, Frederik Vesti was another young hopeful in Abu Dhabi trying to impress behind the wheel of a contemporary F1 car. Vesti was afforded the chance to pilot the Mercedes W14, but despite being an F2 title contender in 2023, there are no openings on the horizon.
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff expressed frustration at the limited opportunities available for fresh faces.
Speaking to Sky F1, Wolff admitted that he is concerned by the lack of chances available to rookie drivers in the sport, after 10 took part in FP1 in Abu Dhabi.
“It’s unfortunate when you look at some of the guys that drove in FP1, there’s a few of them who would deserve to be in a Formula 1 car,” Wolff said.
“And at the moment there is a bit of a blockage.”
Sky’s Martin Brundle then took the chance to offer a solution in the form of the proposed Andretti bid to join the F1 grid in 2025, one that Wolff has largely been opposed to.
“You must be keen then to have Andretti on the grid and two more seats for these young drivers?” Brundle remarked. “
“Yeah, that would be amazing,” Wolff responded. “Then we could put the young drivers in there.”
The reality of the situation is Andretti poses the greatest opportunity yet for new drivers to join the grid with the current crop of F1 teams vying for a risk-averse approach to driver selection at the present moment.
The fact remains, with Abu Dhabi being one of just two official tests across the whole F1 season, GPs are the only consistent way of bedding in a new driver and given that’s when the vital points and results are on offer, teams don’t want to risk it with an unknown quantity.
This risk-averse methodology saw Haas employ veteran Nico Hulkenberg for the 2023 season after three years on the sidelines rather than go for an upcoming driver.
Elsewhere, the Sauber-owned team, run under the guise of Alfa Romeo since 2018, elected to retain Zhou Guanyu as it transitions back towards an independent entity for the two seasons prior to Audi’s big-name arrival in 2026.
Instead of utilising those circumstances to bed Pourchaire in alongside the experience of Valtteri Bottas ahead of the German marque’s arrival, the Hinwil-based camp has played it conservatively.
The only team going against that particular trend is Williams, who found that Sargeant required a full season to bed himself in during 2023. The American scored just a single point across the entire campaign, which was littered with inconsistency and mistakes.
The end result is Williams has deemed it unfair to cut his F1 journey short and only a second year will be a true measure of Sargeant’s full potential.
Sadly, for the time being, no other driver will be afforded such a chance.
