One thing that is common among all Formula 1 speculators is the random thought of who may be driving for your favourite constructor in a few years' time. Will your team bring in a new hotshot rookie in the mould of Max Verstappen in 2015 or will they unearth the next Carlos Sainz, a perennially underappreciated driver who brings hope back to the lineup?
Naturally, this got me thinking. What do I expect the grid will look like in 3 years' time? Not only that, but how will your team perform during this new era following the drastic regulation changes of the past two seasons?
Of course, I could be horribly wrong. F1 is notoriously hard to predict. As the late Murray Walker often said during his commentary, "Anything can happen in Grand Prix racing, and it usually does." This applies both on track and in the paddock.
Regardless, I thought it would be a blast to make some predictions as to whom will be racing for each team on the current grid, paired with what I expect the next few years will have in store for all 10 constructors, way in the future.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
After a frustrating 2021 season finale in Abu Dhabi, Mercedes will go into the first year with the new regulations with an all-British driver pairing. Based off of the last major regulation change, it would be wise to assume that the Silver Arrows will find the form that made them 8-time Constructors Champions. However, they won’t immediately assert themselves as title favourites, instead finding themselves in the mix with Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren. George Russell will find his feet in the car, managing three wins at Barcelona, Sochi and Abu Dhabi. Lewis Hamilton will go toe-to-toe with Charles Leclerc early in the season and Max Verstappen for the latter half. At the end, his consistency will help Hamilton seal a record-shattering eighth world championship.
2023 will be a season to forget as Lewis Hamilton will bow unceremoniously out of the sport with a fourth place finish as George Russell will finish third, demonstrating his rapid qualifying pace by leading the grid in pole positions.
As Lewis Hamilton announces his retirement as soon as he is mathematically ruled out of the championship hunt, Mercedes will search for a short-term replacement. Hoping to sign Esteban Ocon when his contract expires at Alpine, Mercedes will pursue Sebastian Vettel on a one-year contract, but he will reject them in favour of a role at the UN. Daniel Ricciardo will be taken off the driver market by Aston Martin, so Mercedes will have to pivot elsewhere. They’ll snatch Sergio Perez from rivals Red Bull to help them retool. George Russell’s breakout will not occur in 2024, as Mercedes struggle with their car for the first time in a decade, finishing fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Hoping to bring Pierre Gasly into their lineup, the Alpine team won’t offer much resistance to Mercedes’ efforts to bring in former Mercedes Driver Academy standout Esteban Ocon, who has become a team leader learning from Fernando Alonso in an Alpine team that continued to punch above their weight. Ocon and Russell will each have their best individual seasons in F1, as Mercedes will pip heavily favoured Red Bull to drivers’ and constructors’ glory in another epic season, as Russell replicates the form of his hero, Lewis Hamilton.
The Silver Arrows will enter 2025 with all the momentum, trying to fight off Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, and Aston Martin in the closest championship fight for decades.
Red Bull Racing
A jubilant Max Verstappen claimed that he would love to stay at Red Bull for 10 years after winning the championship in 2021. The rumoured Mercedes move will never happen, as the Dutchman will hope that he can break Sebastian Vettel’s record of 4 Drivers’ Championships for Red Bull.
In 2022, the regulation change will not be kind to Christian Horner’s team. They’ll stutter out of the gates with Max Verstappen’s frustrations coming to a boiling point when he suffers another mechanical failure in France just a few laps from the end which would’ve likely ended with him winning his first race of the year. Sergio Perez will enter the summer break ahead of his superstar teammate after a fortunate win in Saudi Arabia and a splendid drive in Canada. However, during the three-week period between Hungary and Belgium, the Red Bull mechanics will find the sweet spot with the car’s development. Verstappen will dominate the rest of the year, winning seven of the last 10 races. With no appealing drivers on the market, Red Bull will offer another short-term deal to Checo Perez, who duly accepts.
In 2023, Max Verstappen will find the form that made him a world champion, beating Lando Norris to the Drivers’ Championship. An unremarkable year from Sergio, not unlike his first year with the team (a singular win, a few unfortunate DNFs, a podium in Mexico) will lead Red Bull to drop him for the upcoming season. Following his best season in F1 yet with AlphaTauri, Red Bull will bring in Yuki Tsunoda. Their main target, Carlos Sainz will reject a return to Red Bull after an unpleasant experience dealing with Helmut Marko the first time around. Despite an F2 championship in 2022 and an impressive rookie season with AlphaTauri in 2023, they will learn from their previous mistakes and let blossoming star Liam Lawson get another season in the Red Bull sister team.
George Russell’s dominance as well as Aston Martin’s resurgence will lead Red Bull to a slightly disappointing third in the standings during the 2024 standings. Yuki shows promise in the Red Bull, but the ruthless Helmut Marko will drop him in favour of Liam Lawson, who put in another great season at AlphaTauri, leaving Yuki without a seat for 2025. He’ll sign on for AlphaTauri again, but his merely satisfactory performance in 2024 will leave his career teetering on the edge, particularly with karting superstar Arvid Lindblad being lined up for the AlphaTauri seat in 2026.
With an established phenom and potentially a future superstar on board, Red Bull will be hoping that Lawson can break the curse of young Red Bull junior drivers having their potentials wasted at the highest level.
Scuderia Ferrari
The Scuderia go into 2022 with high hopes for the future. Their hotshot prospect Charles Leclerc will prove that he has the makings of a world champion, winning the first three races of the season and clinching pole in each one as well. Mercedes will start to fight back and Lewis Hamilton will finish on the podium for all but one of the next seven races. Despite not having the same consistency of Hamilton, wins in Monaco, Austria, and France will leave him in first place for the Drivers’ Championship at the beginning of August. After summer break, Red Bull will become the fastest car and Charles Leclerc’s results will slow down. Hamilton will win the world championship courtesy of victory in Brazil, but Leclerc and Sainz will help Ferrari to the Constructors’ Championship.
2023 will be a disappointment for the Prancing Horse. The first signs of a Leclerc-Sainz rift start to emerge after Sainz pushes Leclerc off at Zandvoort. They’ll finish fifth in the Constructors’ Championship just one year after winning it. Mick Schumacher’s performance will not do enough to stir any major doubts about Carlos Sainz’s future and he’ll stay on for another year.
The next year, Sainz will quash any doubts about whether he deserves the seat by vastly outperforming Leclerc in a car that clearly has dropped off a level. Their rivalry will come to a head during an infamous collision in Miami. Sainz’s future will be more uncertain than ever, but Ferrari will make the decision to let Sainz’s contract expire before going after young Mick Schumacher in 2026.
Ferrari will go into 2025 with a very tentative future, praying that the lows of 2024 were the rock-bottom points of the early 2020s.
McLaren F1 Team
2022 will be a mixed year for McLaren. Their two star drivers will put in middling performances for most of the year highlighted by a spectacular Lando Norris recovery drive in Texas. Daniel Ricciardo will hit a purple patch of form at the end of the season to beat his teammate by less than ten points. Hoping for continuity, McLaren will keep both their drivers, and despite speculation that Mercedes or Red Bull will initiate the break clause in Norris’ contract, the Woking team will enter the 2023 season with no changes.
2023 will be Lando Norris’ best season yet. Being supported by an in-form Daniel Ricciardo, he will win in Britain, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Austria, and Hungary. Unfortunately for Norris, Max Verstappen will barely beat him to the drivers’ title clinching it with a win in Abu Dhabi at the final race. However, this will inspire confidence in the McLaren team as they win their first Constructors’ Championship in 25 years. However, Daniel Ricciardo, despite helping McLaren to the Constructor’s title, will pursue another opportunity. He has been very clear about his desire to be a team leader for a burgeoning team where he can make a lot of money. There is one team on the grid that would fit that to a tee, and coincidentally they have a driver whose contract would expire in 2023. Daniel Ricciardo will jump ship to Aston Martin and Zak Brown’s McLaren team will give IndyCar import Pato O’Ward a shot in F1.
2024 will be a tough adjustment year for the team, as O’Ward will take some time to get to grips with driving against the very best. His qualifying pace will be enough for McLaren to confirm him for 2025, while Lando Norris will go into the third year of a long-term contract, expecting to get back to the form he achieved in 2023.
Alpine F1 Team
After jumping past AlphaTauri in 2021, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon will struggle to replicate the form they showed the previous year during the 2022 season. They’ll drop to sixth in the standings and make a radical change to their driver lineup. Following an abrupt retirement from Fernando Alonso, they’ll bring in Oscar Piastri alongside Esteban Ocon.
With the young Australian putting in excellent results, Alpine will ascend in 2023. A fourth place finish in the Constructors’ Championship will yield some well-earned prize money. Piastri’s consistency will garner him many plaudits, but Alpine will lose Esteban Ocon to Mercedes after the Silver Arrows offer him a lucrative contract to partner George Russell in 2024. The French team will identify a perfect replacement: fellow Frenchman Pierre Gasly. Giving up on his dream to earn the Red Bull seat back, Gasly will sign for the team from his home country and form one of the most exciting young duos on the grid.
2024 will be an average year by Executive Director Marcin Budkowski’s high standards, as Gasly and Piastri will perform well in the machinery they are given, but they are overtaken by Ferrari and Aston Martin in the Constructors’ Championship, eventually finishing sixth. A podium for Pierre Gasly and a fifth-place finish for Piastri in the Abu Dhabi season finale will offer hope for a bounceback season.
Scuderia AlphaTauri
A frustrating loss in the battle against Alpine for fifth in the Constructors’ Championship during the 2021 season will motivate the AlphaTauri team to have a successful 2022. Yuki Tsunoda will prove his end-of-season form was not a fluke, making significant steps to close the gap to Pierre Gasly. Gasly will also put in another impressive performance, scoring a podium in France and a brilliant pole position in Belgium. AlphaTauri will try to ride the wave, keeping the duo together for 2023.
Unfortunately for them, Alpine will bounce past AlphaTauri. The differential between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda will be cut down, and nobody will know whether it was due to Pierre Gasly’s performances dropping off or Yuki Tsunoda taking a step closer to Gasly’s level. Clearly, Red Bull were in the latter camp, as they’ll bring on Tsunoda to partner Max Verstappen for 2024. Rivals Alpine will steal Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri, leaving them scrambling to fill in two spots in the driver lineup. 2022 F2 runner-up Liam Lawson will be an easy choice, and Dennis Hauger will separate himself from the rest of the options with a 2023 F2 championship. The two will make for a compelling lineup.
In 2024, despite not having an F2 championship to his name, Lawson will quickly prove himself to be the star of the pairing, helping AlphaTauri past a resurgent Williams team to seventh in the championship. His performance in an uncompetitive car leads Red Bull to promote him to the main team, demoting Yuki Tsunoda back to AlphaTauri. AlphaTauri will officially name Arvid Lindblad, fresh off an F3 championship, their reserve driver, leaving Yuki’s F1 future in doubt.
Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team
Aston Martin were potentially the biggest disappointment of 2021 in Formula 1. After barely failing in their bid for third in the Constructors’ Championship battle in 2020, their car’s performance could not reach the heights from the previous year. However, many experts are tipping Aston Martin for big things under the new regulations, as they have been operating under a strict budget cap implemented by themselves for the better part of a decade.
2022 will be an even more frustrating year. Alfa Romeo will pip Aston Martin to seventh place. It will come down to the last race in Abu Dhabi, but a wonderful drive from Valtteri Bottas in the Alfa will break the hearts of all Aston Martin fans. They will announce that the driver lineup will stay the same and try to get another bite at the apple.
The car will show some improvement, as they’ll finish sixth in the championship. Lance Stroll will get another stunning pole position in front of his home fans at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Unfortunately for them, a stubborn Sebastian Vettel will announce his sudden retirement, leaving a gaping hole in the lineup. Luckily, with Lawrence Stroll’s deep pockets, they’ll offer a lucrative contract to Daniel Ricciardo, fresh off a very successful season with McLaren.
The addition of the Aussie to their team will be just the motivating factor they need. Ricciardo will find the Aston Martin car easier to drive. Ricciardo and Stroll will each win a race en route to a second place finish in the Constructors’ Championship.
Aston Martin will enter 2025 hopeful of using their momentum and topping the highs of the previous season.
Williams Racing
Hopes are high at the Grove-based team for the first time in years. Though the loss of George Russell will sting, Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi will go into 2022 with expectations of consistent points.
Albon will quickly prove that he has what it takes to succeed in F1. Latifi, on the other hand, will struggle mightily. His lack of pace will be exposed by his younger teammate. Despite impressing, Albon won’t be able to pull Williams out of 9th place in the standings, after a double DNF in Brazil mathematically rules them out of contention. The team will consider Dutchman Nyck de Vries as an option to replace Latifi, but in the end, they’ll stick with Latifi, as the monetary benefits that the Canadian brings will prove too valuable.
Williams will improve in 2023, finishing eighth, as Albon continues to prove that he is a very capable F1 driver. However, the underwhelming results from Latifi will lead Williams to make a move that they have been linked to for a couple of years. Williams development driver Jamie Chadwick will be a revolutionary switch, becoming the first female F1 driver since Lella Lombardi just under 50 years ago.
Chadwick will show lots of promise, but Williams will be passed by Alfa Romeo’s exciting young driver pairing and they will have to settle for ninth place again.
Williams’ will have confidence that Chadwick can take a step in the right direction and despite not paying off on the high ambitions they set for themselves in 2022, they’ll expect to push into the midfield in 2025.
Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen
After falling behind Williams despite producing a C41 that clearly had lots of pace judging by their impressive preseason testing speeds, Alfa Romeo have completely changed their driver lineup. They have added the first full-time Chinese driver to the grid, Guanyu Zhou, as well as the right hand man to Lewis Hamilton for the past few years, Valtteri Bottas.
This rejuvenated lineup, coupled with fast Ferrari engine will aid Alfa Romeo in blowing by Williams and Aston Martin, finishing an impressive seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship. This will be highlighted by a Bottas podium in Abu Dhabi.
Unfortunately for them, the Italian team will struggle to replicate that form, falling back down to ninth. Valtteri Bottas will announce his midseason retirement from F1, not unlike his countryman Kimi Raikkonen did this year. Guanyu Zhou will be demoted to Alfa’s test driver and with an opportunity to get their hands on two of the most prized young drivers in the sport, Theo Pourchaire and Mick Schumacher, Alfa Romeo will not hesitate to get them to sign on the dotted line.
The young lineup will find lots of success, with some brilliant results coming via a maturing Schumacher and Pourchaire will garner praise with a few incredible overtakes over the course of the season. The duo will finish in eighth place with boss Frederic Vasseur optimistic about the future.
Uralkali Haas F1 Team
In my mind, this is going to be a miserable few years to be a Haas fan.
2022 will be another brutal year, though Mick Schumacher will pick up points for Haas after an impressive drive in Miami. Mazepin will not be completely hopeless like he was in 2021, but points will still elude him.
2023 will be more of the same with a third consecutive tenth place finish in the Constructors’ Championship. However, disaster will strike for the marketing team when Mick Schumacher transfers to Alfa Romeo, hoping to kickstart his stalling career. Without his star driver, owner Gene Haas will finally give in and sell the team. Nikita Mazepin’s billionaire father, Dmitry, will take over full ownership of Haas F1. As you may expect from a Russian oligarch rolling in cash, he’ll rename the team Mazepin and won’t miss a beat finding a replacement for Schumacher. Dmitry will fire team boss Guenther Steiner and attempt to sculpt the team to his liking. As for the driver to partner his son Nikita, it will be another Russian. After winning the 2022 F2 championship and impressing in a couple of practice sessions for Haas in 2023, Ferrari Driver Academy member Robert Shwartzman will be brought into the team.
Shwartzman will outperform Mazepin in his first year in a Haas, but the two drivers will both score points for the first time. With his long-term future in the sport guaranteed, Nikita Mazepin will stay on. Expecting to get the Alfa Romeo seat following Mick Schumacher’s departure in 2026, Shwartzman will be motivated to claw Haas out of the basement in 2025.
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED
Comments
Post a Comment