There’s always talk of which Formula 1 junior driver will be next in line for a promotion at their respective team, whether that be to a test, reverse or race driver role. And there is also plenty of attention drawn whenever juniors are dropped or part ways from their backers too.
Junior drivers don’t have to be realistic contenders for future F1 seats, they’re another tool in the marketing arsenal more than anything else (see Ferrari’s F1 struggles while their juniors swept everything before them). It’s only once you get to the highest level of junior single-seater racing when the expectation emerges to reward strong performances on track with F1 opportunities.
Alpine have struggled in that regard with reigning Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri. His private F1 test programme initially happened only because a fellow junior driver’s finances enabled it, then his free practice debut was held back for so long that he’s now on his way out of the team to seek a race seat elsewhere. Given what happened the first week of the summer break, Alpine has received deserved criticism of its approach to managing its junior talent.
One driver who no team has obligations to is Piastri’s potential F2 successor: Felipe Drugovich. The 22-year-old Brazilian leads the championship by 21 points after 10 rounds in an exceptionally long 14-event season – and yet he has no F1 affiliation whatsoever.
So have the ten Formula 1 teams simply failed to spot a shining talent among the hundreds of gifted young drivers racing today? Not quite.
Multiple times this year, Drugovich has spoken about the freedom of choice he i s offered from not being tied to any F1 or IndyCar team. His management is known to have been pursuing opportunities in both paddocks for 2023, including potentially filling the car that Alex Palou still hopes vacate at Chip Ganassi Racing if his planned McLaren SP transfer does indeed goes through.
Drugovich is without a doubt one of the best drivers currently without connections to the top echelon of single-seaters, as his seven F2 wins, his utterly dominant 2018 Euroformula title – where he won 14 times in 16 races – and his deeply impressive 2017 ADAC Formula 4 season before that – where he was almost champion – all show.
He did, however, have noticeable weaknesses in his Euroformula campaign, and his development in F2 hasn’t been linear either. In between his starring rookie season with MP…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…