A New Generation Of Young Drivers Entering F1

With Formula 1 currently in a four-week break between Singapore last weekend and the forthcoming United States Grand Prix and Sprint at the excellent Circuit of the Americas, located just outside Austin, Texas, it’s perhaps a good time to pause and consider the sport’s exciting new wave of young drivers and the increasing impact they rightly may continue to have.

18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the one year older Oliver Bearman, and 21-year-old Jack Doohan are simply living the dream by already having confirmed seats on next year’s 20-car F1 grid, and they are joined by 21-year-old Franco Colapinto and 22-year-old Liam Lawson, who are both racing at the pinnacle of world motorsport for the remainder of this season, with high hopes of taking their chance to impress.

This contrasts with Aston Martin’s 43-year-old Fernando Alonso, who can still show immense speed but who hasn’t won a Grand Prix since Spain in 2013 nor a Drivers’ title since way back in 2006. Also, Sir Lewis Hamilton will be 40 by the time he makes his much-heralded debut for Ferrari at next March’s season-opener in Melbourne, Australia, and Valtteri Bottas, currently racing for Sauber, is 35 and has yet to score a single point in 2024.

Formula 1 teams have long faced the conundrum about opting for experience or youth, and the former has often been the case, but this year we have witnessed a gradual progression towards exciting young challengers being given a chance to shine as they are far cheaper to employ and potentially represent the future rather than swansongs for other far more famous names. These youngsters, usually being promoted after impressing in Formula 2, well know that if they don’t deliver, they will quickly join the long list of former F1 drivers, but they are all desperate to be given an opportunity to shine and compare favourably with the already well-proven and more senior talent on the grid.

Toto Wolff, the principal, CEO, and part owner of the Mercedes Formula 1 team, deserves praise for taking a risk by choosing rising star Antonelli to replace the departing Hamilton starting from the next season. However, it remains to be seen if the young Italian will have the same impact on the F1 scene as the equally young Max Verstappen did. The UK’s 19-year-old Ollie Bearman has for some time been on Ferrari’s books as a talent for the future and stood out when deputising for the appendicitis-stricken Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. His reward has been a full-time F1 race seat at Haas next season alongside Esteban Ocon, and the ambitious youngster already has a burning desire to one day compete for Ferrari. Jack Doohan is best known as the son of five-time 500cc world motorcycle racing champion Mick Doohan, but the young Australian has proved his worth in F2 and then as Alpine’s reserve driver before being promoted recently to a race seat with the French outfit next season.

When the Williams team decided a short while ago that it was time to part company with its underperforming American driver, Logan Sargeant, it eventually did a deal with Sainz to arrive from Ferrari for 2025 but also promoted its junior F2 driver, Franco Colapinto, as a temporary replacement for the remainder of this year. In short, the young Argentinian has been an absolute revelation at F1 level in terms of his pace, maturity, and consistency, and if this pattern continues, he will surely find a seat elsewhere if Sainz’s arrival closes the door at Williams.

This leaves us to consider young Liam Lawson, whose promotion at RB to replace the ousted Daniel Ricciardo for the remainder of the current campaign was confirmed just a few days ago. The New Zealander had shone when he temporarily replaced the injured Ricciardo last season, and now Red Bull/RB’s no-nonsense senior management has handed him a further opportunity to impress, although an inherited power-unit-related grid penalty won’t help his return in Texas shortly. The likeable Lawson knows that nothing is guaranteed beyond the end of this season but is quietly thrilled about the recent turn of events. He is also fully aware that Red Bull is closely monitoring the progress of its French/Algerian 20-year-old reserve driver, Isack Hadjar, who is currently second in this year’s F2 Championship with a pair of rounds remaining.

So, you can see why Formula 1 has such an exciting future ahead when you add proven talents like Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, and George Russell, who are all in the 23-26 age bracket. Long-established stars are increasingly facing challenges from the arrival of highly talented relative youngsters. Bring it on!