There is a serious lack of skill on the current Formula 1 grid, and it’s getting to be downright appalling that there’s nowhere for the talented young kids working their way up the so-called open wheel ladder to go. So many of the graduates of the junior series are being shuffled off to IndyCar, endurance racing sports cars, Formula E, or shipped to Japan to run in Super Formula. Don’t get me wrong, all of those series benefit from having world class racers on track, but they deserved a shot at F1 and didn’t get it because Sergio Pérez somehow deserves seventeen seasons of mediocrity.
Red Bull is the biggest source of my ire when it comes to their treatment of junior drivers. The one entity fielding four cars on the grid somehow doesn’t have space to take a risk with its driver lineup. The energy drink company talks a big game about its junior driver development program, but hasn’t graduated anyone to the big leagues since Yuki Tsunoda in 2021. The team is quick to turn its back on young talent as soon as they have a rocky season, but will turn around and hire a decidedly past-his-prime Daniel Ricciardo after a season on the sidelines. It’s truly bonkers.
After eight grands prix so far this year, nine full-time drivers have scored fewer points than Oliver Bearman, who subbed in for an unwell Carlos Sainz for a single round. While many of them are in piss poor cars that couldn’t score a victory with a world champ at the wheel, you’d think they’d accidentally their way into the points along the way.
I look at the current grid, with a seriously-old-for-F1 average age of 30 years, and I think about all the young guys who have missed their shot at an F1 title because the old timers won’t give it up, and the billionaire club just can’t see they don’t have the talent to warrant them sticking around. Oliver Bearman, Liam Lawson, Felipe Drugovich, Theo Pourchaire, and maybe even Mick Schumacher all got rat fucked because the has-beens keep getting contract extensions. There is no reason to hire the likes of Gasly, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Perez, Bottas, or Ricciardo over them.
Give the kids a chance.