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manykinsmen · 3 months

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What the grid might look like in 2025

so i've had my thinking hat on about this and i wanted to come up with a semi-realistic hypothetical, based on what i know about the teams and what i would do in their shoes. i'll try to give solid justifications of why and how sure i am, as well as a few options if multiple seem possible.

so we already know what a few teams will look like, short of any broken and bought out contracts (i'm listing drivers alphabetically by surname, i don't want to speculate on any first/second driver deals):

ferrari: lewis hamilton, charles leclerc

mclaren: lando norris, oscar piastri

this is a given, there's a small chance that norris or piastri coul be bought out but i don't think any team would feel the need to do that. lets start with some that i think might keep the same lineup.

aston martin: fernando alonso, lance stroll

as much as the alonso to mercedes rumours are entertaining, i doubt there's much reality to them. mercedes is obviously backsliding and alonso's age means that he can't be a long-term solution. likewise, toto wolff is a control freak and fernando alonso is not someone he can control. alonso seems happy at aston martin, which is steadily improving as a team. stroll's contract will run until he personally is done with f1, and i can imagine alonso going the same way. the only danger here is one of them getting bored and retiring or moving to a different series.

sauber (i'm not calling it that): valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu.

this might seem weird but sauber's not looking to do much but stay afloat until audi takes over in 2026. changing the lineup to get a bigger name would mean spending money, which i imagine they really don't want to do. changing the lineup to bring in a rookie would risk the results that they have, and in any case, their major issue is vehicle reliability. bottas and zhou both score pretty well for the vehicle they have, zhou seems to be steadily improving under bottas' mentorship, they get along well and are a stable, reliable pair. they also are both pretty decently sponsored and unlikely to be poached by another team. even if a bigger name came calling (which feels unlikely), they'd probably want more money than sauber are willing to spend. i'd call this pretty likely for 2025, but 2026 onwards is anyone's guess.

so this is where it starts to get a little funky.

mercedes: alex albon, george russell OR george russell, carlos sainz jr

i'm 50-50 on this one. we know russell is a done deal pretty much and mercedes aren't the kind of team to swap both drivers at the same time. looking around at who is available to fill the hole left by hamilton, i'm pretty convinced that they're only serious options are albon or sainz. we've already ruled out alonso. bottas is a very distant possibility, but it would be pride-wounding for toto wolff to go back to him, especially knowing he would be forced to offer bottas a multi-year contract if he really wants him. ocon has a history with mercedes, but hasn't really been providing results with alpine, and seems to be slowly falling out of favour. likewise mick schumacher's been out of the car for a year after failing to impress at haas (and seems to be falling out of love with f1 himself). the team is slowly backsliding and needs someone that they know can deliver results.

if it were me, i'd be picking sainz. he's the only non-verstappen driver to win a race in the last season and has driven a front-running car recently. they'll probably even get him for cheaper than his actual value given he'll be desperate for a decent seat. however, as we've said earlier, toto wolff is a control freak. albon comes from unofficial mercedes junior team williams, meaning we're less sure of his capabilities, although he has impressed there. he has a very good relationship with russell, which gives him a serious advocate. there's a possibility that red bull might try to poach him, but he already has a very strained relationship with them.

if i have to choose, i'd suggest albon is slightly more likely. but it's going to be a photo-finish.

red bull: alex albon, max verstappen OR carlos sainz jr, max verstappen

sorry to all the ricciardo fans out there, but i reckon whoever's not at mercedes is gonna end up at red bull. red bull have been in a bit of a quandry over their second driver for a while and i'm not 100% certain that perez is even going to last the entirety of 2024. i can't imagine perez will have many teams desperate to scoop him up either, given just how much he's underperformed in the best vehicle on the grid, that he's one of the oldest on the grid, and the fact that he's already driven for so many of them. there's always a possibility of somewhere like haas having a go, but there's about to be a lot of seat shuffling, and i can see perez losing out entirely unless he pulls out something spectacular in 2024.

red bull are also experiencing something of an internal power struggle. as much as christian horner is slowly removing power from helmut marko, that process is not yet complete. horner clearly was teeing up ricciardo for promotion back to red bull in 2025 but there are two big problems with this: helmut marko isn't enthused and also, all of that rested on the assumption that the lineups at the front-running teams wouldn't change until 2026. oops. red bull might be top dog now, but that can't always be the case and they are right to frightened of a hamilton/leclerc pairing at ferrari. i would have expected them to attempt to poach norris or piastri, but mclaren's managed to lock that down. russell poaching is about as likely as san marino winning the football world cup. alonso would be too much for them to handle. what options does that leave them with?

well. if it were me, by the rules of engagement of the red bull driver's academy, i'd be promoting tsunoda, who's been holding the junior team together for a while now, but they've shown exactly zero interest in doing that. there's also ricciardo, who is something of an unknown quantity with his age and injured hand, though he was decent in the past and is well-liked. sainz is now unexpectedly available, and though he has something of a turbulent history with the team, it's not as recent or as insurmountable as albon's history. there's going to be something of a weird bidding war that happens here. unless ricciardo can really truly impress in 2024, i'd say he's unlikely to remain the favourite. based on my feeling that it will be albon at mercedes in 2025, i'd have to say i think sainz is most likely here.

williams: logan sargeant, frederik vesti

so, i think the person that's going to be luckiest out of the seat disaster dominos that we're currently witnessing is actually logan sargeant. why? well, sargeant had a pretty terrible start in his rookie season of f1 and very nearly lost his seat to fred vesti. before all of this began, sargeant new he was really going to have to deliver in 2024 or face being out on his ear. now, some of that pressure is off. it seems pretty certain that either mercedes or red bull will snap up sargeant's teammate albon, creating a space at williams. teams are usually pretty reluctant to replace both drivers at the same time unless they absolutely have to (it's a better the devil you know, controlling the variables conundrum). changing drivers at all is always a risk, especially promoting a rookie given how steep the f1 learning curve is. williams is a rookie pipeline team, meaning they're far more likely to promote a rookie than take on a driver from elsewhere on the grid. the favourite to replace sargeant was vesti, ergo, sargeant gets a stay of execution and vesti gets his seat.

potential alternatives? well, if logan sargeant has an absolute clanger of a second year, he will lose his seat and there won't be anyone looking to take him off williams' hands. there's always the possibility of a new f2 hero usurping vesti as favourite, or being promoted alongside him in a rare-double rookie event (assuming sargeant performs poorly). there's also the possibility of williams snapping up a backsliding driver, which they have a history of doing. if that were the case, i'd be looking at ocon or gasly from alpine as likely candidates. difficult to call it a backslide, but picking up yuki tsunoda is also not beyond the realms of possibility

toro rosso (i am not calling it that): daniel ricciardo, liam lawson

controversial here, but i think a driver will be leaving this team at the end of 2024 and it may not be who you think it is. with all the chaos at the front of the grid, i think daniel ricciardo might be the big loser, short of the people that will lose a seat entirely. which is just his luck lately. i've explained why i don't think he'll be getting the red bull seat above (short of having an incredible season in 2024). i also don't really think there's anywhere else for him to go. he's swallowed his pride enough to come back to red bull, he'll swallow his pride enough not to rage quit the entirety of f1, probably. in any case, helmut marko has suggested that ricciardo has got a long-term contract.

if i were yuki tsunoda, i'd be looking for an out. red bull's about to have a too many drivers, not enough seats conundrum. they've really wanted to promote liam lawson since he did so well subbing in for ricciardo last season and thought they had the perfect set up. now things have changed. red bull have shown no real interest in yuki's career - he's not being teed up for that red bull seat and there's no real future for him with them. he's in real danger if ricciardo doesn't get that promotion. where do i think he's going to, well, fortunately, i think he'll have options, which we'll talk about below.

alpine: pierre gasly, yuki tsunoda OR jack doohan, esteban ocon

oh boy oh howdy this team is not looking good. if the rumours are to be believed, nobody's happy with the current lineup at alpine. gasly and ocon hate each other and the management hate that they have to deal with it and everyone hates the results. something has to give in this team.

as we've said though, teams hate changing too many variables at once. the management at alpine is in constant crisis, so they'll probably be looking to retain one of their current drivers. but who? well, gasly did achieve better results in 2023, but only by four points and while the car had lots of reliability issues, ocon wound up retiring because of them more often. they were both on the podium once. gasly might have more grace as the new boy, but ocon has had longer to cultivate friendships. it's really even stevens and will come down to results in 2024 and relationships with team personnel behind closed doors. we don't have that information at the moment so this one is officially too close to call. i'd be worried if i were either though, because neither really impressed the grid last year and seats are scarce.

who do they bring in to fill the gap though? well, as discussed above, if i were tsunoda i'd be looking to move. if gasly is the driver retained, tsunoda would have an advocate in the team and be a safe bet for not causing inter-team drama. if ocon is the driver retained, the tsunoda move would seem unlikely. alpine will probably look to promote a rookie (like they wanted to do with piastri) and the best option in their driver's academy is jack doohan, who as rumour has it has been garnering a lot of good will in the team by doing the vitally important job of stopping gasly and ocon from killing each other. there's an outside option of poaching a visibly frustrated theo pouchaire from the ferrari academy, but pourchaire is developing a reputation as a drama queen, the last thing alpine needs.

haas: oh god this is complicated

things are up in the air with haas in a big way, for multiple reasons. firstly steiner got the boot, secondly there's rumours that andretti will attempt to buy out haas given that f1 has turned down their application for a team, thirdly, gene haas absolutely will not invest in this team in a way that allows it to achieve anything.

firstly, and i'm sad to be saying it because i love him,i think magnussen will be leaving f1 at the end of 2024. there's a few reasons: magnussen is not exactly hot property and he's been at haas a long while. his biggest advocate in steiner is now gone and the team is going to be desperate for sponsor money, which magnussen does not provide oodles of. some more positive reasons: magnussen has two small daughters that he is worried about missing pivotal moments with (and the eldest of which will be starting school in 2025, so won't be as easy to travel with) and has expressed interest in other series which are less demanding in terms of the number of races and amount of travelling. i'm very sad about it because i've always thought magnussen deserved better and didn't get his fair shot, but also i think he'll be leaving with a smile because there are other things in his life that are more important and worthwhile to him now.

hulkenberg is more of a questionmark. he also has a child of the same age, but has been less vocal about the difficulties of parenting and racing simultaneously. however, he is also older than magnussen and as much as teams typically hate the double driver swap when it isn't absolutely necessary, haas have shown themselves as willing to do it, and although it's a baby out with the bathwater move in my opinion, it would be very much in keeping with gene haas's attitude. i wouldn't be surprised if hulkenberg also looses out.

who will replace them? good. fucking. question. if andretti swoop in and buy the team, almost certainly colton herta, an indycar driver who's been linked to the andretti f1 project repeatedly. if not? your guess is as good as mine. they'll probably sweep up the leftovers. if gasly, ocon or tsunoda find themselves out of a seat, there will almost certainly be space for them at haas, maybe even perez. of these, if pourchaire can't find an opening elsewhere, there's probably also space for him at haas, along with any number of promising rookies. the only person i'm confident it won't be is mick schumacher. of these, gasly would be very much appreciated at haas with his delicious crypto sponsors.

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