Silly season 2024-2025

[KimiRai]

Rookies and young talent is popular again. Some will surely fail. And this will bring names like Magnussen and Kvyat back into the fold for 2026 and beyond.

What real "young talent" is out there really? Let's be completely honest. Out of this new generation of rookies Piastri seems to be the most talented one but he has not even managed to beat Norris. Hamilton as a rookie challenged a 2-time world champion right from the start. This new generation seems weak.

[mvfad]

F1 Testing was previously allowed and Hamilton did a very very very robust testing program in 2006 and before.
Until 2007, rookies had an easier time making their debut because the testing had no restrictions.

For this reason, nowadays it is more difficult for a rookie to do what Hamilton did in 2007.
Not even Verstappen achieved something similar in his early years in F1.

[JordanMugen]

Nobody wants WCC for 2025

How so? Red Bull have presumably selected Liam Lawson because he is an ace!

[Farnborough]

No, Doohan is confirmed at Alpine.

Piastri was confirmed at Alpine

Yes they are just whisperings, but with Flavio in that era of Schumacher move by snatching him from under Jordan apparent contract, then a possibility in how business is done for these things.

I'm looking forward to see Doohan (his father one of the best racers ever to watch) in the seat and apparently good performances in testing. But none of us can judge his real world performances in F1 race situation yet. Often a driver can be extremely high performing in development role but fail in the demands of producing that cutting edge against grid opposition. No one seems to give much/any leeway for any learning time in public opinion land either, decent characters get crucified very quickly.
Colapinto has a delivery, a swaagger and application in similar to MV, FA & Senna about him, some teams don't want to miss out on snaffling a driver like that and take the risk of trying it to see. Williams one of them as they hold contract, but didn't evaluate before chasing Sainz. It would be equally wrong not to see Colapinto on the grid next year as it would to see Doohan bumped.

[TeamKoolGreen]

Colapinto looks like the 2nd coming of Pastor Maldonado to me. He was fast too.

As someone on Youtube said, Briatore is Doohan’s manager, first thing I thought was that he was gonna give him enough races in F1 to trigger the payback clauses in his contract and then send him to WEC or Indy or whatever.

[Farnborough]

Apparently Sainz was given offer for 4yr contract with Alpine, but didn't want to commit that long to lock in.

Seems logical to now consider upcoming talent and see potential.

Gazly is settled and effective in that team so they've something of a stable platform to progress with. Car certainly looked more competent as they got sorted out in 24.

Colapinto could be the next Maldonado, or the next Senna in driving terms looks like we'll find out more this year.

[ali623]

This whole Colapinto saga has been a masterclass by Vowles to be honest. The guy is bang average - you just have to look at his junior career to see that. He did the same thing every stand-in driver does and perform better than expected in his first couple of races, then the hype went into overdrive...

Fairplay to Vowles/Williams for keeping the hype going (despite his lacklustre last few races of the season) and getting Alpine to buyout for a guy they probably never had any intention of promoting to F1 in the first place.

[Valencia2012]

A few F1 sites reporting Checo is done with Red Bull../.. I mean... who knew? /s

Lawson replaces him according French tv f1 broadcaster.

I honestly hope not.

Check your pm mate

[Farnborough]

This whole Colapinto saga has been a masterclass by Vowles to be honest. The guy is bang average - you just have to look at his junior career to see that. He did the same thing every stand-in driver does and perform better than expected in his first couple of races, then the hype went into overdrive...

Fairplay to Vowles/Williams for keeping the hype going (despite his lacklustre last few races of the season) and getting Alpine to buyout for a guy they probably never had any intention of promoting to F1 in the first place.

In reality, we just can't tell.

It's no guarantee, a very good junior career, of successful outcome in F1 either.

Plenty of very high achievers in lower formula arrive in F1 and completely avoid success in any notable way.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

I think these days the less you have success in F2, the more you have potential in F1.

[JPower]

I think these days the less you have success in F2, the more you have potential in F1.

I'm interested to see how this works out. Maybe its a new day, but it makes it even more difficult to take anything from junior category results.

I mean, of the general top 10 drivers of 2024, which of them didn't win an F2 and/or F3 equivalent? Max is really the only one. I guess team heads are OK taking the risk of possibly lucking into the next Verstappen now. We'll see...

[Alesi-J]

F1 Testing was previously allowed and Hamilton did a very very very robust testing program in 2006 and before.
Until 2007, rookies had an easier time making their debut because the testing had no restrictions.

For this reason, nowadays it is more difficult for a rookie to do what Hamilton did in 2007.
Not even Verstappen achieved something similar in his early years in F1.

In his early years - Max didn't drive a top tier car on the level of a a 2007, 2008 or 2009 Mclaren.. The last rookie to have equipment like Lewis was Jacques Villeneuve, who also had extensive testing/prep.