Throughout the years, a number of Formula One teams have set up academies to help promote young drivers from the junior formulas. The question now, given the state of the driver market, is does this philosophy still work?
It’s no secret top teams have helped promote many of the biggest talents in the sport through the ranks. Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel are prime examples of this, coming through the McLaren and Red Bull programmes respectively from a young age. Indeed, over the past 10 years, Red Bull has become the most renown for offering drivers from their own pool opportunities at both of their teams.
But, we are now at a point in time where the junior series has now become filled with promising talent, Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi, Sergey Sirotkin and Charles Leclerc to name but a few, yet despite all of these drivers having support from the top teams, their progress has been halted.
It’s not just getting to F1 that is proving difficult for the next generation of drivers. Red Bull have now got Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen partnered at the senior team for further seasons to come, this has left Carlos Sainz now without an opportunity to progress up the grid despite his promising abilities. Danil Kvyat’s career was also badly impacted by the internal politics of the academy last year.
Mercedes appear to have a quandary within their own ranks also. While Esteban Ocon has been given a rise up the grid to the Force India team for 2017, Pascal Wehrlein has been left waiting to find out if he will be the one to fill the coveted seat vacated by Nico Rosberg. Despite over 3000 testing miles under his belt with the 2017 tyres and thorough knowledge of how the team works, it now appears as if the German is set for a seat at Sauber.
In a previous time of F1, someone with Wehrlein’s experience and youth would be primed for that seat without question, but it appears Mercedes are unsure as to what to do with 2015 DTM champion.
Ferrari has recently signed 2016’s GP2 runner-up Giovinazzi as their third driver, however, with Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel still at the team and other drivers linked for a future seat, it is unlikely he will see the grid in Maranello red anytime soon, especially as the team is known for not putting inexperienced drivers in their race cars.
And at Renault, they have several drivers in their ranks, with the likes of Sirotkin, Oliver Rowland, Louis Deletraz and Jack Aitken, However, with a signature signing in Nico Hulkenberg joining their outfit from Force India and the retention of Jolyon Palmer for another year, again, this leaves these junior drivers without much hope of moving up.
So, despite the backing from these teams to help climb the junior ladder, do they now do a disservice to the new drivers they constantly hire?
The time span of which a driver now operates in Formula One has extended dramatically in recent years due to a number of factors, safety, health and better training, which means it now allows many drivers to spend up to 15-17 years in the sport before they hang up the helmet.
Also, with constant rule changes that have been brought about in recent years, teams appear to cling on to these experienced drivers in some sort of fear that they will fall behind the opposition. The gamble taken on these younger drivers is now very unlikely.
Another factor to consider is that, in the case of Carlos Sainz, he was considered by Mercedes as part of their search to fill the empty seat, but Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stated that after the investment they have put into the Spaniard; why would they part with him to a rival team?
Could it be that not taking a role in the junior ranks is a way forward? It’s a very hard direction to follow as gaining sponsors to fund drives is very difficult to find and, if it all goes awry, the chance of a career in racing other series reduces drastically.
Even if the financial backing isn’t there, showing that level of talent is just as vital, initiatives like the Racing Steps Foundation in the UK help talents that perhaps aren’t financially well backed. GP2’s Oliver Rowland, GP3’s Jake Dennis and Ben Barnicoat in Euro F3 are good examples.
It’s hard to say how teams could change how they operate in the future with regards to junior talent but maybe something else needed to help nurture that talent into F1? That’s for them to decide.
