The Formula 1 driver market is on the home stretch. The only problem is no-one knows how long the stretch is.
Only six of 20 seats are officially unaccounted for with four months of the year — and barely two months of the season — still to run, but there’s so much uncertainty injected into the situation by contractual manoeuvring that it’s hard to know how long it will take to tie them all up.
As often tends to be the case in the small world of F1, most of the available seats are connected.
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Only Zhou Guanyu’s unconfirmed seat at Alfa Romeo is currently far removed from the Fernando Alonso-inspired mess engulfing most of the rest of the midfield. The Chinese driver is expected to be retained for another season; if not, Sauber junior Theo Pourchaire would likely get the nod.
But seats at McLaren, Alpine, AlphaTauri, Haas and Williams are all potentially related. The first seat to fall could set off the rest in a domino pattern until we’re suddenly fully subscribed.
The first brick in the wall will be the decision of the FIA’s contract recognition board on Oscar Piastri’s obligations, which was due to be finalised in the early hours of Friday morning but is yet to be communicated at the time of writing.
These are the moving parts.
OSCAR PIASTRI
Let’s start at the start. Oscar Piastri’s sensational decision to defect from Alpine, which raised him through the junior ranks, to join McLaren is what set much of the driver market in motion after Fernando Alonso spectacularly switched to Aston Martin.
The reigning Formula 2 champion has signed a contract with McLaren, though Alpine is adamant it has a hold on his services for at least 2023.
The FIA’s contract recognition board met on Monday to arbitrate the matted and had until Thursday evening in the Netherlands to come to a decision. As of late Thursday night, no decision had been communicated.
Whatever the CRB finds, the Melburnian will land at Woking next year. The only question is whether McLaren has to buy out his contract from Alpine.
DANIEL RICCIARDO
Piastri’s defection meant Daniel Ricciardo had to be moved on to make space, and he was duly sacked with a year to run on his contract during the mid-season break with a handsome payout.
Ricciardo, an eight-time race winner and one of the sport’s most highly rated drivers before arriving at McLaren, has the potential to be a major player in the driver market, but his hand is nonetheless weak.
He cannot command anything like the exorbitant salaries he’s become accustomed to partly because of his underwhelming McLaren tenure and partly because the competition for seats is just high enough to keep costs down.
But teams must also wonder where Ricciardo’s head is at. The Australian has said all the right things — that he’s determined to continue in Formula 1 and that he’s still motivated by competition — but in person he comes across as flat compared to his previously vibrant, fizzing self.
You get the sense he’s working to put on a brave face. The question is whether that’s his axing still sinking in or whether there’s a deeper existential questioning going on beneath the surface.
His best option remains Alpine, the team he snubbed two years ago, but there appears to be significant conflict at Enstone about whether Ricciardo should be hired. While team management has changed a great deal since he left and thus holds no grudge, at the executive level there’s thought to still be a rawness about the way Ricciardo abandoned the team and misgivings about how it would look to take him back.
It’s therefore unsurprising that in the last week Pierre Gasly has emerged as a potential major player for the Alpine seat. What’s not clear is whether Enstone is serious about making a move for the Frenchman or just using him for bargaining leverage.
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If Alpine was to close its doors to Ricciardo, Haas could offer him refuge in place of Mick Schumacher, though that would be a substantially greater step down the grid.
Speaking at the Dutch Grand Prix, the West Australian said he was willing to hear all offers for 2023, saying he was humble enough not to dismiss anything out of hand, including a year as a reserve driver if it would help keep him connected to the sport for 2024.
“[Lower-placed teams] are definitely things I will give some thought to,” he said. “I don‘t also want to be too stubborn or shortsighted — ‘Oh, I’m not interested in that’. I will give everything it’s respected thought.
“Even if it‘s reserve — I don’t want to be too proud to say I’m too good for that
“I just want to hear everything and see what makes sense.
“It could be saying it sends me out better for the future and next year is one of those years where it‘s just a bit of patience.”
PIERRE GASLY
Pierre Gasly has never been far away from contract speculation during his relatively short F1 career, and so is the case again in this silly season, having been reportedly sounded out by Alpine for a possible switch to create something of a French super team along with Esteban Ocon.
The internet was even temporarily set alight between Belgium and Netherlands too when a Ferrari video appeared to catch him talking about the “final details of the contract” with Charles Leclerc and George Russell, noting that Sergio Perez let slip his new Red Bull Racing deal in his own hot-mic moment.
However, the Frenchman was quick to dispel any speculation speaking to media in Zandvoort, insisting that his discussion on the way to the grid last week had nothing to do with F1.
“If you guys would have only any idea the subject we were talking about, you would probably laugh,” he said. “Definitely I can guarantee you it was nothing about Formula 1.”
He dead-batted questions about his contract, which he renewed for 2023 in June, though he stopped short of saying he would drive for AlphaTauri in 2023.
“I stated last week [that] next year I’m contracted to AlphaTauri. Everybody is aware of my contract situation,” he said. “Compared to last week, nothing has changed.
“I don’t feel like commenting anything for the moment. I’m with AlphaTauri and giving my best for AlphaTauri. They gave me first seat in Formula 1, they gave me my first victory; I don’t feel like commenting anything.”
Alpine would have to overcome several problems to hire Gasly.
The first would be convincing the Red Bull program to part with Gasly while it’s without any other contracted driver to suit up for AlphaTauri. The second would be to pay out his contract.
The Race has reported that terms for the Frenchman’s release have been agreed with Alpine.
But the third would be to smooth over the long-running rivalry between him and Esteban Ocon, which dates back to their days junior racer days and is rumoured to be fierce.
But there’s strong logic to the move from Gasly’s side. It would get him out of a dead-end Red Bull program that has Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez locked in at the senior team for many more years. It would also give himself a chance to prove himself outside of Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri — to prove that his lacklustre half-season at Red Bull Racing was an aberration.
COLTON HERTA
There’s considerable speculation linking Colton Herta to an unlikely induction into the Red Bull program through AlphaTauri in the event that Gasly departs.
Herta, the Andretti IndyCar rising star who’s contracted to McLaren on an F1 test contract, would fit Red Bull’s ethos of taking a punt on young talent, particularly drivers with great natural speed.
However, Herta is still without a superlicence and is unlikely to qualify for one this year without an exemption from the FIA. The FIA only recently updated the superlicence points schedule and opted against boosting IndyCar’s relevance, which would appear to make such a situation a long shot.
While there would be great commercial benefit from such a signing for both Red Bull and the sport, the governing body has no explicit scope in the regulations to take into account marketing value in making exceptions to what is principally a safety rule.
Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou does have a superlicence but is currently embroiled in a contract dispute between McLaren and his current team, Chip Ganassi Racing.
MICK SCHUMACHER
Mick Schumacher’s future in Formula 1 is looking increasingly uncertain, with Haas poised to drop the German at the end of the season in search of a more experienced driver to help the team move forward in the field.
Schumacher is also reportedly set to be canned from the Ferrari Driver Academy at the end of the year, though neither he nor Ferrari is willing to confirm it.
“I think in that sense what has been discussed behind the scenes between us is something that I would rather keep between us and not speak publicly about,” Schumacher said on Thursday. “That‘s a contractual matter, which I can’t go into detail with.”
Haas boss Guenther Steiner was also similarly noncommittal when discussing Schumacher’s future.
“We decided to wait a bit,” he said. “We are not in a hurry. We monitor the situation with Mick and see what is happening.
“Why do we need to decide now anyway? If we decide now and make the wrong decision and we regret it, why would we force ourselves to decide just because you want an answer.
“I’ve got my own thoughts [on candidates], but I still need to make sure who is best for the team.”
Ferrari junior Antonio Giovinazzi has been linked to the seat and will undertake two FP1 sessions in the second half of the year, but the Italian’s year out of F1, during which he scored no points in the Formula E series, may count against him.
The team would be thrilled to convince Ricciardo to join, not only for his experience but for his branding benefits.
Nico Hulkenberg, veteran of 181 starts, is also potentially in the frame, having substituted for Sebastian Vettel at the beginning of the year at Aston Martin.
If Schumacher is dropped, Esteban Ocon has vouched for him as a possible teammate at Alpine, which probably says as much about their friendship as it does about how likely the Frenchman thinks he’d be able to beat the German in the same car — and also how much he wouldn’t be keen on working with Gasly.
The Red Bull program seems unlikely to plump for a driver sacked by Haas, meaning only Williams would present itself as a possible source of refuge for Schumacher if he finds himself looking for work.
NICHOLAS LATIFI
Nicholas Latifi is uncontracted at Williams, and though he seemed as good as finished before the mid-season break, the door appears to have been reopened slightly since then.
Part of the reason is that Williams is keen on junior drive Logan Sargeant, but the American is thought to be likely to benefit from another season of Formula 2, and rather than bring in a new driver for one year, sticking with the cashed-up Latifi might be the better stopgap solution.
“There have definitely been some discussions already over the past months and weeks,” Latifi said. “My intention is clear to the team that I want to stay with them, and they’ve made it clear to me what the expectation is and what the performance is. Good performance will be key.”
Schumacher could be a wildcard in this frame, while Formula E champion Nyck de Vries is also an option.
YUKI TSUNODA
Yuki Tsunoda has become somewhat lost among the noise around him in the driver market, but the longer he remains unsigned, the larger the question mark over his future will become.
Gasly’s departure would be a boost to his chances of retention to ensure continuity. Counting against him is that Honda junior Ayumu Iwasa won his first F2 feature race at the French Grand Prix and is arguably at the level of development Tsunoda was when he earnt promotion.
JACK DOOHAN
The Aussie young gun, who won his first feature race last weekend in Belgium, is a long shot to make it to F1 next year. Though he qualifies for a superlicence and has improved a great deal this year, he would benefit from another season of his apprenticeship.
Alpine could be persuaded to turn to him if it couldn’t snatch Gasly from AlphaTauri or agree to terms with Ricciardo.
