Mark Hughes: Stale F1 grid looks set for a wave of new drivers in 2025
“There’s a high proportion of the F1 grid perceived to be under-delivering”
The outstanding performance of 18-year-old British driver Oliver Bearman as Carlos Sainz’s late-notice substitute at Ferrari in Jeddah is more significant even than spotlighting a major future Formula 1 star. It’s a reminder that the tides of time are turning and that a new wave of talent is set soon to crash onto the beach, revealing a lot of old driftwood.
It’s only partly to do with age; Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton are not under any threat from the new generation, for example. It’s to do with how long F1 gives you to demonstrate you are operating at a level beyond the ordinary. In this, perception is all.
Both RB drivers, both Sauber drivers, Sergio Pérez, Logan Sargeant, Kevin Magnussen and Lance Stroll all have reason to be nervous about their F1 futures. That’s 40% of the grid. Sure, some of them will doubtless deliver something in the coming season which will show they are still worthy of their place there and Stroll may be safe at Aston Martin regardless. But that’s an unusually high proportion of the grid perceived to be under-delivering.
Some of those named have been in Formula 1 for many years, have had their moments and there is now doubt about whether they have the last edge of speed. Not so much from ageing, just from being ground down by the slog, subconsciously no longer prepared to devote the energy and commitment required to stand out. Others – Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu and Sargeant are notable cases – were given opportunities as promising young talents but have so far failed to move onto the next level whereby their presence on the grid is a given.
So as Mercedes looks around to see who it might replace Hamilton with next year, it’s not necessarily aiming at an experienced racing driver. Yes, Toto Wolff would love to have Max Verstappen on board if the world champion is serious about leaving Red Bull should things not be as he likes there. But let’s assume that’s not happening. That being the case, Mercedes’ junior protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli, age 17 and currently Bearman’s Formula 2 team-mate at Prema, is the favoured candidate. Much will depend upon how his F2 season goes, but if it goes the way of all his previous seasons, he will be in the car alongside George Russell next year.
If it doesn’t go quite so well, then Alonso would be in the reckoning for a short contract – that’s if he wished to go there. Which he may not, depending upon the trajectories of Mercedes and his Aston Martin team this year (and of Aston-supplier Honda relative to Mercedes in the 2026 power unit development). Regardless, we can probably expect Antonelli to graduate to F1 next year – with Williams if not Mercedes.
“It would feel ludicrous for Ferrari not to place Oliver Bearman somewhere”
It would feel ludicrous for Ferrari not to place Bearman somewhere in F1 next year given what he achieved in its car in Jeddah and so the Ferrari-aligned Haas team suggests itself. Magnussen is probably seeing the writing on the wall there but may yet get to stay if Haas’s other driver Nico Hülkenberg is recruited by Audi as a replacement for Zhou Guanyu, as is being rumoured.
Meanwhile, 2022’s F2 champion Felipe Drugovich is on the sidelines as Aston Martin’s reserve driver. Quick, intelligent and personable, he stood in for Stroll in last year’s Bahrain test after the latter had broken his wrist. He was impressively fast and consistent. The engineers raved how it was as if he’d been in the car for years and would surely slot straight into F1. If Red Bull bought out Alex Albon’s Williams contract a year ahead of its expiration and returned him alongside Verstappen next year, Williams might be looking for two new drivers. Drugovich would fit in well there if there is no place at Aston for him.
Liam Lawson was at times outstanding subbing for the injured Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri last year and seems sure to have a place there in ’25. Unusually, Red Bull’s junior driver programme doesn’t currently have an obvious candidate whose performances demand they be given an F1 chance in the RB (formerly AlphaTauri) team. But as Max Verstappen showed a few years ago, you don’t necessarily have to be on that programme to be given a chance there. The last time it stretched out beyond its junior programme to sports cars for an F1 driver was with New Zealander Brendon Hartley and as that didn’t lead anywhere maybe there would be some reluctance to look to that arena again. But if it did, it could do worse than consider 20-year-old Danish ace Malthe Jakobsen. He currently races in LMP2 but was stunningly fast in a Peugeot Hypercar test, so much so he’s now their official reserve. A Lawson/Jakobsen line-up there would be an exciting one.
There comes a time when such enthralling prospects are more appealing than known quantities and it feels like that moment has now arrived. Bearman’s performance in the Ferrari just made it even more certain. It’s time.
Since he began covering grand prix racing in 2000, Mark Hughes has forged a reputation as the finest Formula 1 analyst of his generation
Follow Mark on Twitter @SportmphMark