The last big pieces of the Formula 1 silly season are neatly lined up and ready to fall, but in an unusual and rare twist, no team is capable of pushing the first domino to set off the chain reaction.
The next step rests solely in the hands of the FIA, which is weighing up whether it will abide by its own superlicence regulations and bar American IndyCar racer Colton Herta into Formula 1.
This is the tail end of the chain reaction set off by Sebastian Vettel’s announcement and Alpine’s parallel mismanagement of its driver roster, which in turn triggers Fernando Alonso to join Aston Martin and Oscar Piastri to depart for McLaren, where Daniel Ricciardo was sacked to make space for him.
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Alpine is now in need of a driver, and with Ricciardo seemingly struck from the list — at least from the top of it — the team has set its sights on building a French super squad by pinching Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri.
But that would just move the vacancy further down the grid with mere months left to run this season.
Thus a bold deal has had to be cooked up.
GETTING GASLY
Gasly is a prized Red Bull asset, but his tenure with program has long been on the clock.
When the Frenchman lines up for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, he’ll become AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso’s longest serving driver, clocking up 90 entries to Daniil Kvyat’s 89.
It’s part of the reason he’s become such a consistent performer, but it’s also arguably much too long for a team that’s supposed to be nurturing young talent for greater things.
With no prospect of joining Red Bull Racing in the medium term, both Gasly and Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko have heavily signalled that they’ll part ways at the conclusion of their current contract expiring at the end of 2023.
Alpine is interested, not only for his ability but because it would by a signal it isn’t just seeking to limit the damage from its horror month off track.
But AlphaTauri needs Gasly too — he’s not just leading the team, but he fits the ambitious AlphaTauri and Red Bull brands.
He couldn’t be replaced with just any driver. If Alpine is going to make a statement with Gasly, AlphaTauri must make some headlines of its own.
HUNTING HERTA
Enter Colton Herta, the 22-year-old seven-time IndyCar winner whose name has been connected to Formula 1 since McLaren handed him a test and evaluation contract at the start of the year.
He’s since run three days in a 2021 McLaren car in preparation for possible FP1 outings this year and to prepare him for a possible Andretti F1 entry, though that’s looking increasingly unlikely.
However, with Piastri now signed up for two years, McLaren is considering how to deal with the Californian and his F1 aspirations.
“We would never want to hold a driver back,” Zak Brown said. “Racing drivers want to drive.
“We want to encourage racing drivers to race.”
A young American rising star with a big reputation for his bold racing style — his nickname was ‘Hooligan Herta’ during his junior European racing days — wouldn’t just suit the Red Bull brand but would inject some excitement into an AlphaTauri team that’s supposed to be taking risks on unproven youngsters.
It’s so good a fit that talks in recent weeks have come to unusually rapid fruition, accelerated in part by the fact Red Bull some years ago gave an early release to former junior Pato O’Ward to join McLaren’s fledgling IndyCar team. An agreed swap would be that favour repaid.
“Astonishingly enough, all of the parties and teams involved, we found an agreement,” Marko told SpeedCity Broadcasting on SiriusXM.
The only problem is that Herta isn’t eligible to race in Formula 1.
So what’s next?
WHAT IS AN FIA SUPERLICENCE?
The FIA superlicence system is a method of evaluating a driver’s eligibility to race in Formula 1 based on their success in other categories. Every driver must accrue 40 points over a three-year period to qualify.
Different categories weighted by perceived likeness to Formula 1. For example, finishing in the top three in the Formula 2 championship gets you 40 points straight off the bat. Winning the IndyCar series is likewise worth 40 points but earns fewer points for lower finishes.
Assuming Herta finishes eighth this season, he’ll be stuck on 31 points. He can also earn a bonus point for every FP1 session entered, but with seven races remaining, it should be mathematical impossible for him to earn enough
But as always, there are some potential loopholes. For reference, here’s Herta’s recent racing record.
2018: Indy Lights — 2nd (12 points*)
2019: IndyCar — 7th (4 points)
2020: IndyCar — 3rd (20 points)
2021: IndyCar — 5th (8 points)
2022: IndyCar — 8th (3 points; ongoing)
Counting his 2020–22 record, Herta has for 31 points.
However, if Herta applied for a licence this year, the regulations allow a driver to choose to count their three previous years if they wish — that is, 2019–21 instead of 2020–2022. That would bump Herta up to 32 points given he finished seventh in 2019.
But there’s a further twist. Due to Covid, the FIA has expanded the criteria to count three of a driver’s best four seasons. Again, that doesn’t have to include the current year.
Counting his second place in Indy Lights, the IndyCar junior series, along with his 2020 and 2021 results would bring him to the golden 40 points.
However — and there’s always a however with these things — because only eight drivers started the first race of that Indy Lights season, it counts for only half as many points.
That would take Herta’s tally back down to 34 points.
Only if he raced in every FP1 session after the Italian Grand Prix would he then be able to qualify, and it’s highly unlikely any team would be willing to sacrifice so much track time in a live season.
In other words, he’s at a dead end.
CAN HE JUST GET AN EXEMPTION?
That’s certainly what Red Bull is hoping for, and the FIA has left the door open just a smidgen in the regulations.
For drivers with a minimum of 30 points, the FIA says it will consider offering an exemption “due to circumstances outside their control or reasons of force majeure”.
It’s arguable that Herta’s Indy Lights campaign featured an unusually small number of entrants, with just eight starting the first race and seven drivers completing the entire season.
The previous year had 15 drivers start the first race, which would’ve left Herta with 39 points, and 2016 would’ve seen the series awarded full points after 16 drivers started the first event.
Whether a thin field is enough of an argument to be considered force majeure is where this battle will be decided.
Already the teams are marking their territory.
“I think he’s an exciting talent,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner said. “He’s a young American, a guy that’s been a standout talent in the US, so it’ll be very interesting to see how he performs in Formula 1.
“Formula 1 obviously has got growing popularity in the US market at the moment, and to have a successful US driver could be very interesting, could be interesting for us in the longer term.”
McLaren is also unsurprisingly supportive.
“In terms of superlicence, I think in general we believe in the system, we think it’s a good system in place, but at the same time we are absolutely up for some flexibility as well,” team principal Andreas Seidl said.
“Absolutely open for some flexibility there and handing a guy like Colton the superlicence, because in the end, with what he has shown so far in his racing career, I have no doubt that he is absolutely able to compete in Formula 1.”
Seidl also called for flexibility due to Covid reasons, though that’s fairly disingenuous given Herta’s best two seasons came in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the pandemic.
But other team bosses a less disposed to making an allowance.
“From my point of view, it has nothing to do with force majeure,” Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur said. “If the FIA want to stop the process of the points and the superlicence, it’s another story … but nothing to do for me with force majeure.”
Haas boss Guenther Steiner said teams should abide by the rules that many had had a role in writing years previous.
“I think we have got rules and regulations which we need to respect,” he said. “If we don‘t respect our own rules and try to find ways around it, I don’t think that’s correct.
“We made them ourselves — if we signed on to them, there is a governance, we need to respect it.”
It’s worth acknowledging that several have a stake in bringing their own junior drivers through the costly and sometimes tortuous European junior ladder. Seeing someone essentially jump the queue via an exemption is therefore understandably unpalatable.
Most interesting, however, is that Formula 1 itself — despite its powerful desire to expand into the United States — has come out against Herta being exempted from the superlicence system.
“The sport needs to respect the rules,” F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali told Autosport. “Of course American drivers or other drivers are very important. If he is eligible to come in F1 because he has the points, it‘s fantastic news.
“But there is a ladder to follow, there is a protocol to respect, and that is the situation. So it‘s really what I believe is right to do.
Domenicali also said he was against the prospect of changing the rules retrospectively to make IndyCar more valuable in the superlicence system.
It’s worth noting, though, that the regulations are solely up to the FIA.
SO WHAT’S NEXT?
The driver market hinges on the governing body’s next steps.
“First we have to get a definite answer (from the FIA) and I think it should be by Monza,” Marko told SpeedCity Broadcasting on SiriusXM.
“If the deal works then it happens in Monza, also for Pierre of course.”
But without an exemption, the three-corner driver deal would fall apart.
“Pierre is doing a good job within AlphaTauri, so I don’t think there would be a desire to change if there wasn’t an interesting option available,” Horner said.
That in turn would leave Alpine at a loose end in the driver market.
It could attempt to brute-force Gasly out of AlphaTauri, but given the team’s recent contract travails, one would have to wonder whether it had the appetite for more off-track action.
Red Bull would also mount a ferocious fight if it was determined to keep Gasly in its ranks.
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Mick Schumacher is also out of contract. Esteban Ocon, who’s good friends with the German, has advocated for him to join Enstone in the event Haas drops him, which seems like the American team’s most likely course of action.
There’s also the question of Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian says he’s not personally considering his future until after the Italian Grand Prix, by which point much of the driver market may have moved on, but with so few decent options on the driver market, Alpine may decide to swallow its pride for having been dumped by Ricciardo two years ago and give him a call.
There’s also the outside chance Jack Doohan, Alpine’s most senior development driver behind Piastri, could get the call-up. He was runner-up in Formula 3 last season and is fourth in the F2 standings this year. He’d more likely be on the list for 2024, but promoting him now would avoid any Piastri-like bottlenecks down the line — and would give the development program a win.
But for now its first priority is clearly Gasly. All the power is in the FIA’s hands, and undoubtedly Alpine, McLaren and Red Bull will be advocating for the governing body to wield it in their favour.
What it decides will set an interesting precedent and could well ruffle some feathers.
