In the round-up: Formula E race winner and GP3 (now Formula 3) champion Mitch Evans says getting a place on the Formula 1 grid is down to chance as much as ability.
In brief
“Crazy opportunity” is only way into F1 – Evans
Evans said he’d proven himself quicker than some F1 race drivers in simulator tests “but it brings nothing” in terms of career advancement. “You just need a freak situation to happen,” he told Total Motorsport. “Even trying to get reserve seats, there are guys paying to be reserve drivers. It’s ridiculous.”
He believes some in F1 were too quick to heap praise on Nyck de Vries, his Formula E rival, and Oliver Bearman following their first appearances in F1.
“When you are really in the fickle of it and know how it works, the sport is demented,” he said. “Look at Nyck de Vries. He was not going to [get a] chance at all for an F1 seat, then he got a free chance when Alex Albon got sick, did a good job and all of a sudden he’s the best thing since sliced bread. He’s the same driver he’s been for all the other years.
“Look at Oliver Bearman [in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix]. These are good guys but the week before he qualified 18th in Bahrain, then he gets a chance at Ferrari.“He did a decent job but was in one of the best cars and he will probably get a chance out of it. It’s all about perception but teams don’t want to take risks on drivers any more. The only way you can get there is by getting a crazy opportunity in a race seat.”
Malukas heading to Foyt
David Malukas has landed a full-time IndyCar drive for 2025 after a pre-season wrist injury prevented him from taking up his intended place at McLaren this year. The 22-year-old will join perennial backmarkers Foyt, whose form has improved this year since they formed a technical alliance with Penske, which has seen their driver Santino Ferrucci rise to 10th in the championship standings.
“For me, the 2024 season was very chaotic and did not go to plan so I am looking forward to a new beginning,” said Malukas, who returned to the series in June as a replacement for Tom Blomqvist at Laguna Seca.
Canapino back to tin-tops
Agustin Canapino will return to Argentina’s Turismo Carretera (touring car) series this weekend after quitting IndyCar halfway through his second year in the series. He sat out one round in Road America earlier this year in the wake of an online war of words between his supporters and McLaren driver Theo Pourchaire following the pair’s collision in Detroit.
Juncos Hollinger is yet to announce a replacement for Canapino, whose car was driven by Nolan Siegel in Road America, before he joined McLaren as Pourchaire’s replacement.
Mueller joins Andretti
Nico Mueller will join Andretti’s Formula E team following Norman Nato’s departure. The former Abt driver will partner 2023 champion Jake Dennis.
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Lapierre: Alpine must aspire to fight top teams in 2025 (Sportscar 365)
'I think next year the car can be strong everywhere. The big step we need is the reliability, and making sure we can drive without problems.'
Good vibes, coffee, rest and relaxation: Beganovic on his hometown (Formula 3)
'We have a karting track in the city, which is like 10 minutes from my house, so it’s not that far. We used to go on a Wednesday and a Friday, and it was a free practice, from 5 to 8. It wasn’t a big track, but it has everything, and I learned quite a lot from it. It’s not just tight corners, it has chicanes, high-speed sections and tricky slow corners. So it was a good place to learn, especially being so close to my house, it was very useful to have.'
F1 Manager 2024 update for 13 August 2024 (Steam DB)
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Comment of the day
Nick isn’t wasting any time daydreaming about Salzburgring joining the F1 calendar:
Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t have an amazing, old-school track located in a gorgeous European setting that makes Paris look like an eyesore. Not when we could fit at least another three dictators and/or emirates on the track?
We’ll need races in Xinjiang, Modi’s Motorsport Park and one in both Moscow and Mariupol to rehab the Kremlin’s image.
Don’t dwell on all the empty seats installed by indentured labourers. Dwell on the billions in hosting fees they could net.
Nick T
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to F1George, Dan_The_Mclaren_Fan and Kirill!
John Plato
14th August 2024, 3:52
Couldn’t agree more.
Ollie Bearman is the most overrated driver of the year. Hopeless in F2. Got lucky in F1.
Then we have drivers in the past like Kobayashi who got dropped for Gutierez. LOL
Diez Cilindros (@diezcilindros)
14th August 2024, 8:33
Maybe you should take a look at his F3 and F2 rookie seasons? With 17 and 18 years of age?
Janith
14th August 2024, 20:18
F2 races are redundant when you do well in F1.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th August 2024, 6:40
Mitch Evans couldn’t be more spot-on.
De Vries wasn’t indeed about to become a full-time driver until he received that one-off substitution.
However, Bearman would’ve probably still been confirmed as a Haas race driver on the pre-British GP Thursday, even without his equivalent one-off substitution.
The general point still matters, though, that one-off racing opportunities are usually the best chances for full-time drives, with the reality possibly being different later, as happened with De Vries, & the same scenario is also possible with Bearman, & if that happens, Gene wouldn’t hesitate to replace him with an experienced driver.
I hope that image is a hint towards him staying put rather than wishful thinking, but we’ll see.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage- Special Unhinged Edition (@davedai)
14th August 2024, 13:31
Except that I think “Gene” is about to benefit by 10-15 million from Bearman senior. May give him cause to pause.
Nick T.
16th August 2024, 5:55
+1
The whole system is rotten with luck and family money, but that’s how it’s always been. A major difference now is that we don’t have any of those extra teams we used to that allowed many drivers to get a shot.
And Lawson will be the next De Vries. A very mediocre junior career. And, unlike De Vries who actually got his one result on merit, it took a lot of unlikely luck for Lawson to finish where he did.
Another problem is how little is expected out of rookies these days, which makes no sense based on F1 history. Stars have never needed the “oh, he’s just a rookie excuse.” They excelled right away. Part of this is Sky and F1TV’s philosophy of basically saying “great job” when a rookie doesn’t crash into a wall, call a driver “a potential star in the making” if they finish within 5 places of their teammate and I shutter to think of the endless superlatives we’d be subjected to if one actually put in a stunning reserve drive or debut.
SteveP
14th August 2024, 7:40
Ah, yes. If only we had a short form race with F1 cars that we could repurpose as a competitive showcase for aspiring F1 drivers, run at 6 or more venues in a season.
Photozen
14th August 2024, 8:39
Exactly!
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
14th August 2024, 13:08
The issue with putting young drivers in the cars for the sprint is do you really want damage done to cars by a young driver in a sprint race to end up having a negative impact on the race drivers in the GP.
Imagine a situation like Qatar last year where you have a sprint on a weekend that could decide the championship and you have one of the title contenders GP compromised because the young driver wrote off the chassis and/or engine due to a big accident in the sprint.
And if you start saying they could have separate cars/engines/gearboxes then your just adding extra costs and also potentially impacting the race drivers weekend anyway due to having to have some of there crew working on those cars. And if you say well hire separate crews then again your adding costs.
And you then also have the question of if anyone would watch because the sprint races already get lower viewership & attendance than the GP when it’s the race drivers taking part & it’s likely that putting unknown drivers in that race in place of the regulars would result in fewer people watching which isn’t what they are trying to go for with the sprints (The sprints have actually been a failure in that regard as fewer people are watching Friday/Saturdays on sprint weekends despite how they try to spin the numbers sometimes).
SteveP
14th August 2024, 19:30
You obviously weren’t around for the earlier discussion where the concept was more fully explained, as utilising last year’s car.
The other missing aspect is that we all benefit by not having a “sprint” distracting the F1 drivers from the real race.
S
15th August 2024, 8:51
You keep having this ‘discussion’ with yourself. Literally nobody in F1 wants this – nor most of the people looking in from the outside.
It doesn’t distract drives at all. It is exactly what they want to do in F1 – race.
Practice, on the other hand, does draw many negative comments from drivers due to it being boring and often a waste of time (both for them and for the people they put the show on for).
BasCB (@bascb)
14th August 2024, 7:40
I think Audi signing Bottas and Hulk would give them a VERY solid team of drivers.
And yeah, F1 does show how hard it is to get on the grid if you do not have the connection, people are afraid to take risks? Even Red Bull stopped doing that. McLaren showed at least some of it with putting Oscar Piastri in the car, and maybe? Mercedes will in the end take the step of signing Antonelli. There are so many great drivers out there that never get a chance, while the F1 field values “known values” more to secure their “investments”
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage- Special Unhinged Edition (@davedai)
14th August 2024, 13:27
I think Hulkenberg and Ricciardo is the more likely line-up at Audi.
Nick T.
16th August 2024, 5:42
After the spanking Hulk got by Daniel, the Hulk is now campaigning against DR. However, I agree, I think the relationship with Bottas might be too broken. DR and NH would be exciting. Any lineup with Bottas = yawn.
Riccard
14th August 2024, 8:25
Succeeding in any area takes talent, drive, AND luck. F1 is not alone in that – though it does take it to extremes (and I’d also add ‘money’).
I don’t agree you need a freak situation to break in. Bearman was on his way anyway; Kimi will probably be on the grid next year.
The bigger issues to me are (1) sticking with proven ‘good’ drivers like Magnussen and Perez instead of testing for great ones; (2) pay and sponsored drivers, in which I’m including Stroll; and (3) teams sticking with their favourites irrespective if performances in F2.
It must be so disheartening for the top-ranked drivers in F2 to see Bearman and Kimi sail so serenely through this year while the people beating them were largely ignored.
Those decisions may be correct in terms of talent, but what’s your pathway if you don’t have the connections, funding or patronage to catch someone’s eye?
Plenty get promoted for F2, but speed, success and a positive mindset don’t seem to be enough by themselves.
Craig
14th August 2024, 10:09
Opportunities in F1 are extremely thin on the ground (sadly not a new occurrence), even the extremely talented get overlooked more often then not and end up going to WEC, Formula E or Indycar if they don’t get stuck into Super Formula. Opportunities like what Verstappen was afforded will simply never happen again (I’d argue it wasn’t a risk worth taking even if it did, highly fortunately for them, “work out”)
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
14th August 2024, 12:04
I can pretty much agree with Mitch Evans.
Bearman did an excellent job in one race in a very competitive car and I’m looking forwards to seeing how well he does next season.
However, Liam Lawson drove three (or was it more?) races in a mediocre car to cover for Ricciardo.
He performed well in all of them with a couple being in mixed conditions where he outperformed some experienced drivers.
Based on that, I have more interest in Lawson as it’s a lot harder to accuse him of being gifted a “crazy opportunity” for one race.
I like the COTD as well.
Some unpleasant truths about the FIA and Liberty in there Nick T.
Nick T.
16th August 2024, 5:46
And Lawson’s big “breakthrough” was really a 14th place behind his teammate without a huge amount of incredible luck from an improbable number of mechanical retirements, crashes, Sainz intentionally backing up the entire field up, etc. The issue is that suddenly in this new F1 media environment, so little is expected of rookies, which makes absolutely no sense based on the fact that stars have always immediately thrived in F1. They didn’t the need the excuse of “oh, they’re just a rookie.”
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
14th August 2024, 12:58
One of the biggest negatives for young drivers looking to get into F1 was the testing ban as that immediately did away with the main avenue teams used to have to give drivers opportunities in modern equipment to not only evaluate them but also see how they developed with more miles to prepare them & also ensure they were ready to be on the F1 grid.
Additionally you also had the rise of the young driver programs which made it harder for drivers not already associated with an F1 team via a young driver program to get opportunities they may once have been given.
And the super licence point system also makes it harder in the sense that it’s now funnelling everyone down a set path rather than allowing drivers who don’t have opportunities in F3/F2 to go & gain experience & prove themselves elsewhere.
And there’s also the incorrect assumption (Mainly from fans, media & sponsors) that because the official ladder with F4/F3/F2 is all using spec equipment that any driver who isn’t at the front isn’t good enough when in fact individual teams engineering is just as important as it is in F1 so a good driver can still struggle towards the back if he’s with the wrong team. I always think back to Timo Glock in 2006 when he was struggling mid pack with BCN (Scoring only twice) only to switch to isport mid season & immediately start contending for wins.
And of course you also have less cars on the grid which has taken away 2-6 extra opportunities for drivers to get on the grid.
There is also the more recent thing of the grid getting a lot more competitive which has also made the mid-field teams a bit more risk averse as putting an inexperienced & unproven driver in a car could prove more costly than it may once have been given how close the times are. In the past you could have a less experienced driver in the car accepting he may be a tenth or so slower than your more experienced driver knowing that a tenth was likely only a 1-2 place difference; Now that 1 tenth could be the difference between starting 10th or 20th at times.
Janith
14th August 2024, 20:17
Amazing analysis by Mitch. Same with Hulkenberg getting resigned again. I doubt he would have been signed if he didn’t replace Vettel.
RicoD (@ricod)
16th August 2024, 16:59
Mitch is right that you need something crazy to get in (and/or money and/or connections). But I have another conclusion from the drives from Nyck, Liam and Ollie to put to the team bosses. If they, not the next super talents, but decent drivers from feeder series can jump in a current F1 car and drive like that, then many others should be able to as well. I’d say all drivers high in the rankings of F2, FE, Superformula, even Indy, would manage. Apparently the risk of failure is low. So what more do you need to know to put in some new young drivers?