Drivers are often reluctant to speak too highly of their team mates, but Fernando Alonso lavished high praise on his fellow Aston Martin racer after joining the team for 2023.
As Lance Stroll’s father owns the brand both of them race for, Alonso’s comments won’t have hurt when it comes to ingratiating himself with his new team. But as the two-times world champion pointed out, he knew the young Stroll long before he arrived in F1.
Moreover, as Alonso has often noted, no driver is ever going to become world champion without a car capable of getting the job done. That’s something a lucky four might get in any given season.
So, given the right hardware, how many of the drivers on today’s grid have shown enough potential that we could confidently regard them as champions of the future?
The race winners
Two new drivers joined F1’s race-winners club last year, meaning half of the grid head into the season having won at least one race. Leaving the three existing champions out of it, which of the seven drivers who’ve already won a race are the likeliest future title winners?
Charles Leclerc finished runner-up to Max Verstappen in last year’s world championship. He can point to more shortcomings on his team’s side than his own performances which hurt his chances of taking the title last year.
His team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr out-scored him in 2021, and after a rough start last year was closer to the pace over the second half of the year. He picked up his breakthrough win at the British Grand Prix. In the penultimate round, Brazil, George Russell took his first win, and gave notice of his title-winning potential by out-scoring seven-times champion team mate Lewis Hamilton.
Sergio Perez narrowly failed to beat Leclerc to second in the standings last season. But although he won two times, that achievement was dwarfed by team mate Verstappen’s record-breaking 15 wins.
Alpine has a pair of one-time race winners in Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. However the driver on the grid who has won the most races without taking a title, Valtteri Bottas, will need a big step from Alfa Romeo if he is to improve on the second place he achieved in the 2019 and 2020 world championships.
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