Despite the starting gun being fired early by Lewis Hamilton’s pre-season announcement he was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari, the race to fill the final vacant Formula One driver seats for 2025 has slowed to walking pace. Expectations were that ‘cork in the bottleneck,’ Carlos Sainz would announce his decision for next season at the Spanish Grand Prix, although a late bid by Alpine for the Spaniard’s services appeared to scupper that time line.

Valtteri Bottas appeared to confirm the Ferrari driver was the key to his own future deal being secured when he told assembled media at the Red Bull Ring, “I was hoping there would be decisions made earlier this week, but deadlines got pushed back again – that’s the situation, so nothing new from last week.

The Finn revealed: ”So yeah, kind of waiting for a piece to fall into place and then it should all happen pretty quick.” Bottas is expected to sign for his old team Williams should Carlos Sainz decide his future lies elsewhere.

 

 

 

Bottas courted by Indycar

Should Carlos indeed decide to join the Williams revolution being led by James Vowles, its uncertain whether Bottas has a future in F1. Sauber/Audi have made it clear they will ‘clean house’ this year making the future for Valtteri and Zhou Guanyu particularly precarious.

Bottas with ten F1 Grand Prix wins is reportedly being courted by five of the smaller IndyCar outfits competing this season along with Prema also expressing an interest as they are set for their debut season in the North American premiere single seater racing series in 2025.

Another driver in the mix is Esteban Ocon who following his first lap blue on blue collision with his Alpine team mate in Monaco decided in the following week his future lay elsewhere from the French owned squad. Ocon’s team principal had a meltdown live on French TV following the collision between his drivers at Portier, threatening “consequences” for Ocon who he blamed exclusively for the incident.

Esteban has had an eclectic journey through his racing career. Originally not picked up by any of the F1 team academies the French teenager was given a test in a Lotus E20 during October 2014. A week later it was announced Ocon would join the Mercedes junior academy and the week after that, as as a prize for winning the F3 (GP3) championship, Ocon tested the F10 Ferrari car in Fiorano.

Steiner: Gene Haas could sell to Andretti

 

 

 

Ocon ‘eclectic’ journey

Esteban was back in the E20 for FP1 at the final race weekend of the 2014 season in Abu Dhabi and it was announced in February 2015 that Ocon would become the test driver for the newly re-acquired Renault F1 team.

In May Ocon was awarded a test with Force India the following May in Barcelona, following illness which forced Pascal Wehrlein to sit out the session. The French driver’s big break came in 2016, when half way through the season Rio Haryanto’s sponsors failed to come through with the cash for Manor Racing.

Despite mixed results at Manor, Ocon was announced as the 2017 full time driver for Force India at the season finale in Abu Dhabi. Following the purchase of Force India by a Canadian led consortium headed up by Lawrence Stroll, Esteban was replaced for 2019 in the Silverstone based team by son of the new billionaire owner of the team.

Mercedes named Ocon as their reserve driver for 2019 as it became known Toto Wolff was managing his career. The driver from Normandy was announced as a Renault driver for 2020, and he has remained with the Enstone based team until he announced his departure following the Monaco controversy this year.

McLaren CEO calls out another bosses double standards

 

 

 

Alpine driver to join Haas F1

Today the Express is reporting sources close to both Mercedes and Haas are claiming that Esteban has signed for the American owned team with an announcement expected in the run up to the Hungarian Grand Prix. Haas F1 are losing the highly impressive Nico Hulkenberg who in the past two outings has scored 16 of the teams entire haul of 27 points this year, but the German is set to join the new Sauber/Audi project for 2025.

There would be a sweet irony for Esteban were his future to be made clear before the upcoming racing in Budapest because it was at the Hungaroring where Ocon secured his maiden F1 victory back in 2021.

Given Sainz and Bottas are not in the frame for a seat at Haas, a relaxed Esteban Ocon hunted last time out in Silverstone where his future would be. When asked if Haas F1 was his future destination, the French driver replied: “There’s nothing more to say on that. We are obviously working on my future, there are good discussions going on and I hope that I will be able to announce very soon.”

The big clue came in his next sentence: “It has nothing to do with me, what Carlos is doing basically,” Ocon explained. “We’re managing our own things, and as I said, things are going well and I should be able to speak more in a couple races.”

Seidl suffering Audi ‘corporate interference’

 

 

 

Magnussen knows his fate

Haas F1 driver lineup for next year is now complete following the signing of Oliver Bearman who had impressed earlier this season as a stand in for the stricken Carlos Sainz. Bearman had just one practice session in the Ferrari SF-24 in Jeddah then qualified his Ferrari in P11 coming through the field to finish P7 in the race, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris.

Kevin Magnussen’s time in F1 looks to be over but given Indycar teams’ interest in Bottas, the Dane could make a career stateside and build on his reputation as a ‘hard man’ when on track.

The Haas F1 driver practically admitted his time was up with the American owned outfit when he told reporters at Silverstone he was aware his team boss was considering an alternative driver lineup for next year. “I feel like I can trust him. He’s not hiding the fact that he’s talking to other drivers as well,” revealed Magnussen. “He’s being open about that and I appreciate that a lot more because I’ve had team bosses in the past who weren’t honest, who were telling me BS and I don’t appreciate that.”

Insider: Verstappen will choose Mercedes

 

 

 

Schumacher: “Formula 1 is back in reach”

Although Mick Schumacher recently celebrated his first points win in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), his ultimate goal remains a return to Formula One. The son of legendary world champion Michael Schumacher has reiterated his desire to return to the pinnacle of motorsport and believes more so than ever that a comeback to the F1 grid is ‘within reach’.

Mick Schumacher would like to return to Formula One as soon as possible, but until then he is racing in the World Endurance Championship with Alpine. RacingNews365 spoke to the German about what he always refers to as ‘Plan B’… READ MORE