Formula One started the 2024 season with the exceptional scenario that every driver remained in the same seat as they finished last year. Yet the driver market quickly exploded with the pre-season bombshell dropped by Lewis Hamilton that he would be leaving Mercedes for Ferrari next year.

This began the long hunt for Carlos Sainz to find another drive and with the Red Bull infighting front and centre there was aa real possibility he could land a drive with the world champions. As the summer break began, the Spaniard announced he would be joining Williams having rejected a works car offer from Audi.

Now there are just four seats left on the grid and with the recruitment of Oliver Bearman to Haas, at least one of the current crop of twenty drivers will be leaving the sport. Perez was confirmed days into the August break by Red Bull to continue in Zandvoort and beyond, though his contract for 2025 will remain dependent on whether he does enough to help Red Bull to a seventh constructors’ championship.

 

 

 

Four F1 seats remain unfilled for 2025

Mercedes, V-CARB, Alpine and Sauber/Audi are yet to confirm their drivers for 2025 with Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guangyu all yet to receive a deal.

1997 world champion, Jacques Villeneuve, criticised Ricciardo at the Canadian Grand Prix when interviewed yesterday Sky Sports the Canadian said: “Why is he still in F1? We’re hearing the same thing now for the last four or five years, we have to make the car better for him. Sorry, it’s been five years of that.”

Ricciardo hit back accusing Villeneuve of talking rubbish as usual. “I heard he’s been talking s**t,” he told the media. “But he always does. I think he’s hit his head a few too many times. So I don’t know if he plays ice hockey or something.”

Having claimed P8 in Montreal, P9 in Austria and most recently a tenth place finish in Belgium, Ricciardo has over those six weekends outscored and out qualified Yuki Tsunoda his team mate. Yet the Japanese driver was given a contract for next season back in April while the Aussie is still awaiting to known his future beyond the end of the year.

Real reason Ferrari rejected Newey

 

 

 

Villeneuve attacks Zhou

Jacques Villeneuve has now turned his ire on Ricciardo’s team mate Yuki Tsuoda suggesting he is only in Formula One because of the huge Chinese financial backing he brings.

”Zhou has a big bag of cash from his sponsors that he needs to put somewhere, whether that’s as an F1 driver or a reserve driver. Based on the results, Zhou doesn’t deserve a seat in F1. If a team can get all that sponsorship money that Zhou brings with him, even as a reserve drive, then it’s a great result for them,” Villeneuve is reported stating by Instantcasino.com.

The Chinese driver spent six years in the European junior racing categories before being offered a drive for Uni-Virtuoso Racing in the 2019 FIA Formula 2 series. He immediately proved quick but was often erratic and he finished each of the three seasons in P7, P6 and P3 respectively.

Come 2022 Sauber F1 were again in financial difficulty and Zhou Guangyu was on offer bringing a reported $30m from his Chinese backers. The Audi deal was yet to emerge so the team made the pragmatic decision to bring in Zhou in alongside Valtteri Bottas with the hope his flashes of brilliance in F2 would translate across.

Red Bull ‘secret’ braking trick deemed illegal by the FIA

 

 

 

Bottas eclipses his team mate

Zhou scored a point on debut in Bahrain but just three other scoring weekends during the year saw him end with just 6 points to Bottas 37. The Chinese driver scored the same number of points in his second season with the Swiss based team, yet he was much closer to his team mate who managed just ten.

This year the Sauber car is truly woeful and the team struggled with poorly designed wheel nuts which saw a number of pit stops earlier this season taking an inordinate amount of time. Both Bottas and Zhou have failed to score, though again the Finn has performed much better than his team mate.

Valtteri is 13-1 up in qualifying against Zhou and his average starting position is 14.86 while Gangyu is 18.00. Sauber were bought outright by Audi in March this year and the driver decisions going forward will now sit with Mattia Binotto and newly recruited team principal Jonathan Wheatley.

Having lost out to Williams in the pursuit of Carlos Sainz for stability purposes Sauber/Audi will almost certainly now retain Valtteri Bottas. But Zhou appears to have no future in Formula One unless Alpine who Renault are turning loose to become independent, regard Zhou and his cash as beneficial to their cause.

Marko: The Schumacher comeback

 

 

 

Gangyu reacts angrily

Today the Chinese driver reacted angrily to the worlds of Jacques Villeneuve describing them as unhelpful, misinformed and plain wrong.

“There’s a lot of stupid rumours from media,” Zhou told RacingNews365 in an exclusive interview this week. “I heard some rumours in the past, and it’s the first time I’m speaking to someone [about it].

“People say [things] like, ‘I don’t know how much money I’m bringing’ [or that I’m] speaking to one of the teams. Not here [at Sauber] – I’m not gonna mention which team, they just announced the driver departure.”

Zhou appears to dismiss the numbers (like $30m) provided by his sponsors and joked if that was the real cash behind him, “I wish I had that, maybe I can invest together in Sauber and make a benefit of it!”

Mercedes will almost certainly now promote academy driver Kimi Antonelli to replace Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull will bring in Liam Lawson at the expense of either Tsunoda or Ricciardo and given the choice based on performance Sauber will surely retain Bottas over Zhou given they ambition which was revealed as they persuade Carlos Sainz.

Indycar champion breaks silence over Audi F1 offer

 

 

 

“Bulls**t!” RBR mechanic slaps down Verstappen theory

Red Bull prominent engineer calls out “bulls**” theory – Today the FIA made a mid-season tweak to the regulations applicable to the legality of braking systems on Formula One cars. This led to ex-Ferrari boss and senior F1 commentator Peter Windsor claiming it was down to Red Bull trickery which was outside the rules.

Windsor claims: “Looks as though RBR might have been running a clever rear cross-brake inertia valve before they were obliged to remove it before Miami,” he stated. “This could explain Max’s RR brake drama in MEL (Melbourne) and his turn-in grief since China.”

Red Bull have been experiencing their worst run since the introduction of ground effect cars in 2022 and over the past nine Grand Prix have won just three. Verstappen is also on his longest run without a win in the new breed F1 cars with his last victory five races ago in Spain and just one podium over the next four… READ MORE