Last Updated on June 21 2024, 11:07 am

This year was always set to be a big moment in the F1 driver market with thirteen of the current crop out of contract t by the end of the season. Throw into the mix the bombshell dropped by Lewis Hamilton pre-season which revealed in 2025 he would become a Ferrari pilot and we were set for the silliest of silly seasons.

The vacant seat at Mercedes would once have been a lure for anyone in the sport, but their poor form this year and general lack of competitiveness since the 2022 ground effect car design rules were implemented, meant the stampede to Toto Wolff’s door never occurred.

 

 

 

Perez loyalty rewarded

Having been ousted by Hamilton’s imminent arrival, Carlos Sainz was the biggest of names being touted around the paddock and in any other year he would have been snatched up by Mercedes or Red Bull Racing, but this is no normal year.

Red Bull’s internal struggles at the start of the year saw Max Verstappen threaten he could leave the team were his mentor and friend, Dr. Helmut Marko, to leave the team. Sergio Perez publicly backed his team boss rubbing all talk of the team being divided.

As a reward for his loyalty to Horner when the likes of Jos Verstappen was calling for his head on a plate, Sergio got a shiny new two year deal from Red Bull, despite his performances having deteriorated this season and Dr. Marko suggesting the new deal had backfired on the team.

Retaining Perez also modified Max, who feared Horner may punish him and his father by recruiting Carlos Sainz to replace Checo. Sainz and Max have previous during their year together ate Toro Rosso and whilst Max won the inter team on track battle, Sainz was close to the then teenager, and with the exception of Daniel Ricciardo, maybe closer than any other team mate since.

Are Renault leaving F1???

 

 

 

Mercedes miss out on Max

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had the opportunity to recruit the young Max Verstappen and let it slip through his fingers and so with academy rising star, Kimi Antonelli, the Austrian does not wish to make the same mistake.

Antonelli like Verstappen has skipped most of the junior formula ladder to F1 as he debuted in F2 this year. Lying sixth in the championship the Italian is ahead of his team mate Oli Bearman who successfully debuted for Ferrari in Jeddah this season as Carlos Sainz underwent surgery.

Yet the question for Toto is whether Antonelli is ready for a drive in one of the front running teams on the grid, or should he like George Russell serve his apprenticeship with a lower order F1 outfit?

The ideal scenario would be for Mercedes to recruit an experienced driver for just one year in 2025, blood Antonelli with the likes of Williams and then move him up to the big boys team in time for the new 2026 regulations.

Huge lap time upgrade coming in Barcelona

 

 

 

Audi give Sainz a deadline

Again, Carlos Sainz would be the obvious candidate for Toto’s one year plan, but now in his prime, Sainz is looking for a longer term project. Were Mercedes capable of winning races, the Spaniard might have been tempted for a single season, but the once mighty silver arrows are firmly behind Red Bull McLaren and Ferrari and despite Russell’s pole position in Canada, the victory for George or Lewis was never really on the cards.

Sauber, soon to be Audi, have courted Sainz in public even giving him an end of April deadline to sign on the dotted line. They later reminded this threat as it became clear, Carlos was not enthralled by the current state of the Audi project as Sauber who build the car are once again back of the grid material.

There is one of the bottom F1 teams on the up despite the lack of results. Since recruiting James Vowles as team principal last season, Williams are now investing heavily in improving the ageing facilities and infrastructure. Vowles spoke of the “hundreds of millions” being invested in Monaco and commercial director James Bower revealed in an interview with Bloomberg, the team now had sufficient sponsorship to spend up to the F1 cost cap limit.

The iconic British marque once again has ambition and belief and Vowles went public in Monaco stating, “Carlos Sainz is Williams number one target” for 2025. So it appeared even then the Spaniard had a choice to make. Join the might of Audi motorsport or gamble on a resurrection of Williams former glory years. The Audi project may come good one day, but even technical director James Key admits the merger will only properly come together at the close of the 2026 season. Even then there’s no guarantee the team will be in the top three and have a car capable of winning races.

Marko SHOCK revelation over Perez exit clause – 3 races!

 

 

 

Vowles praises Sainz skills

This weekend in Spain, Carlos Sainz will be announced by Williams as the replacement for Logan Sargent next year, and due to the reporting embargo TJ13 is not bound by, we can make this announcement now.

“He’s a race-winning driver who last year, against all odds, beat Max [Verstappen] in Singapore with a brilliant drive,” says Vowles. “And that’s not the first time.

“He’s intelligent in how he processes things, logical, incredibly quick. What he did this year in Shanghai, it’s going to sound like a negative, it’s not. In qualifying, he crashed. And we’ve all been there to a certain extent.

“It is an impressive athlete that can reset themselves, go back out and then beat your team-mate in that condition, and I think that shows you just how strong he is as a driver.

FIA under pressure over Monaco GP

 

 

 

Newey to join Williams?

The Williams boss revealed the reason he left Mercedes was to lead the return to success of the third longest serving team in Formula One. Further he made the bold statement that when he’d recruited Sainz, Williams will have “a driver line-up that I think is going to be one of the best on the grid.”

Sainz alongside Alex Albon will truly be the best driver pairing Williams has had for over a decade and the plaudits heaped upon the Thai-British driver for his efforts at Williams will be truly measurable as he goes up against a three time Grand Prix winner.

And as a quiet aside, James Vowles has made a fairy tale return to Williams for Adrian Newey his priority. It was at the Grove based team where the guru F1 car designer had his maiden F1 success. the Williams team boss said following the Canadian Grand Prix he had recruited someone with “high F1 accolades” and they would be announced in “the next few weeks.”

Mercedes sabotaging Hamilton’s car: Really?

 

 

 

Russell on notice as Mercedes finds fatal flaw

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton had their best outings of the year last time out in Montreal. Mercedes scored their first podium of the year in round nine with George Russell overtaking his team mate in the closing stages of the race to clinch the final step on the podium.

With Ferrari and Sergio Perez failing to score at all, the Mercedes result looked as though the team had turned a corner, yet their drivers were not so positive after the chequered flag fell in Canada.

“It felt like a missed opportunity, to be honest,” said Russell after the race having claimed pole position. “We [made] made a couple of mistakes out there, just pushing the limits, and paid the price for it. It was just one too many mistakes at key moments that cost us a shot of fighting with these two towards the end of the race.”  READ MORE