Talent spotting

After an unprecedented season in which every F1 team retained the same driver line up as the previous year, 2025 will see a very welcome injection of new blood into the sport. The lack of space on the grid and resultant stagnation of F2 champions and race winners has been a bit frustrating of late so it’s great to see Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto and Jack Doohan all landing full-time seats alongside the semi-rookie Liam Lawson.

F1 team bosses seem to make such decisions like they’re following the latest fad. If a couple take a punt on a rookie and it works out, the others all want to join in too. There was a trend a few years ago of chasing experience, bringing back the likes of Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg from their sabbaticals. Go back to the early 1990s and we had Indycar stars Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr and Paul Tracy all testing and being evaluated by the top teams, though only Andretti made it, and then only for a single season in a McLaren yielding a modest seven points.

I do think that the other current rookies all need to thank Oliver Bearman for setting the trend today. The race to seventh place he drove in Saudi Arabia earlier this season on a weekend where he was dropped into a scarlet Ferrari just in time for the final free practice session was very impressive indeed. It will have sent a message that results on paper in F2 aren’t necessarily an indicator of a driver’s potential; Franco Colapinto’s early performances at Williams underlined that.