The F1 driver market is picking up pace as we enter the summer. The most significant move had already happened before the season got underway as Lewis Hamilton signed for Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso was the next driver to confirm his plans. Despite holding talks with Mercedes over the Hamilton vacancy, he opted to sign a multi-year extension at Aston Martin instead.
Nico Hulkenberg then became the second driver to change teams as he left Haas to return to Sauber. He made the switch with a view to 2026, when Audi will take control of the Swiss team.
Alex Albon was already under contract at Williams for next year but he still put any doubts over his future to his bed. He inked fresh terms ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix to prolong his stay with James Vowles’ team.
This week there have been two major announcements, the first concerning Alpine. Amid the fallout from his collision with teammate Pierre Gasly in Monaco, Esteban Ocon confirmed he would be leaving at the end of the season.
And then, on Tuesday, Red Bull announced that, as expected, they would be retaining Sergio Perez. Perez’s new two-year deal is a blow to the likes of Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda, who would have hoped to partner Max Verstappen.
Alpine may have tried to sabotage Esteban Ocon
A report from Speedcafe notes that Alpine’s statement regarding Ocon was ‘unusual’. Normally, when a team announces that a driver is leaving, it’s because he’s already signed elsewhere.
However, Ocon is yet to finalise his plans for 2025 and is without a seat as it stands. The £1.1bn team (Forbes) may have been trying to control the narrative.
Team principal Bruno Famin had implicitly threatened to suspend Ocon after he ignored the team’s instructions and hit Gasly. The 27-year-old has since confirmed that he’ll be racing in Canada this weekend, but their announcement shows that they’ve still taken decisive action as they try to cultivate a more harmonious atmosphere within the team next year.
However, another motive may be at play too. ‘Some’ believe that Alpine intended to weaken Ocon’s ‘negotiating position’ with rival teams.
‘It was already known’ that his contract was up, and he would have been holding talks with prospective suitors regardless. But now the F1 race-winner will be approaching them without any real fallback option.
If this is indeed the case, then it would point to the bad blood between the two parties. Things could become very fractious indeed over the remaining two-thirds of the season.
One ‘close friendship’ could keep Ocon in Formula 1
There are five teams who still have at least one vacancy for next year, as you can see in the table below. Of those, Mercedes and RB can be ruled out immediately.
While the Silver Arrows have continued to manage Ocon during his time at Alpine, there’s ‘zero chance’ that they call on him to succeed Hamilton. As for RB, they’re unlikely to hire another driver from outside the Red Bull programme, and they want to extend the contracts of both drivers anyway.
That just leaves three remaining, and much will depend on Sainz. The Spaniard probably ranks above Ocon as the top free agent on the market, and he’s deciding between Williams and Sauber.
It’s possible that the team who lose out on Sainz will make an offer to former Racing Point driver Ocon. But the ‘likeliest’ outcome is that he joins Haas.
Ocon has formed a ‘close friendship’ with team principal Ayao Komatsu going back to his test sessions for Lotus at the start of his career. He could conceivably partner Oliver Bearman, with Hulkenberg off to Sauber and Kevin Magnussen at risk.
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