driver market analysed, silly season, Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari move, contract speculation, Daniel Ricciardo, Jack Doohan

Never before in Formula 1 history has the same set of drivers from the last round of a season lined up again for the first round of the following year.

The driver market for the 2024 season was exceptionally sedate. The status quo reigned.

But the 2025 market promises to be anything but stale. In fact it’s already started popping off.

Every practice, qualifying session and race from the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >

Lewis Hamilton’s blockbuster decision to move to Ferrari next season — made one year in advance — has guaranteed this will be a silly season of jeopardy and intrigue.

At least 12 drivers are out of contract at the end of the year — or 13 if you include Lance Stroll’s rolling contract with his father’s Aston Martin team.

What makes it particularly exciting is that one team — Mercedes, second in last year’s championship — is required to go to market to fill Hamilton’s vacated seat.

Drivers out of contract

Red Bull Racing: Sergio Pérez.

Mercedes: None — but with one vacant seat.

Ferrari: Carlos Sainz — but with no seats available.

McLaren: None.

Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

Alpine: Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon.

Williams: Logan Sargeant.

RB: Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo.

Sauber: Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.

Haas: Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.

But it’s not just that 65 per cent of the grid could be free agents in just a matter of months. There’s a wealth of young talent pushing through the ranks and threatening to snatch seats from the old guard.

Unlike last season, you’d be brave to bet how this driver market shakes out.

THE KEY SEATS

Mercedes

So much of the market hangs on Mercedes’s vacant seat. The fact Brackley must go to market means its decision will almost certainly have knock-on effects for the rest of the grid.

You can almost guarantee several drivers will be waiting to see what Mercedes decides before pulling the trigger on alternative plans.

Though Mercedes isn’t the sought-after destination it once was — it’s conceivable several potential targets will be racing for teams that finish higher in the constructors championship this year — that doesn’t necessarily matter if George Russell steps up.

Russell is clearly immensely talented, but his second year with the team last season wasn’t the strong follow-up campaign he’d hoped for.

If he can put that behind him and return to matching Hamilton, Mercedes will feel secure in targeting a young gun for the second seat knowing they’ll have the chance to grow into the role.

Junior star Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been tipped for a potential meteoric rise into the seat.

If Russell were struggle, however, snatching an older head — say, Carlos Sainz of Fernando Alonso — could be imperative.

Red Bull Racing

This is the most competitive seat in Formula 1, but unlike the wide-open Mercedes situation, this is something of a closed shop.

Sergio Pérez has it in his hands to secure a contract extension, and retaining him is the path of least resistance.

At his best he’s exactly what the team wants: a driver who can finish directly behind Verstappen, win the odd race when the Dutchman is indisposed, finish second in the drivers championship and, most importantly, secure the constructors crown.

His car and Verstappen’s domination ensured he ticked those boxes last year, but a tighter field will put the spotlight on his capacity to meet his KPIs.

The alternative would appear to be obvious: Daniel Ricciardo. So long as the Aussie is performing strongly at RB, he’ll be allowed to accede to the senior team.

Things become more complicated if both Pérez and Ricciardo underperform. Does the perennially underrated Yuki Tsunoda get the nod? Does Liam Lawson go straight in?

Or does Red Bull Racing again test the market?

Sauber

Sauber might not look like much from the outside, but the historic Swiss team is entering the late stages of its metamorphosis into the Audi works team, and it’s crunch time for the final pieces of that story to come into place.

Audi won’t take control of Sauber until its official entry year in 2026, but team CEO Andreas Seidl is preparing the ground for the German marque to make as fast a start as possible.

Part of that equation is the driver line-up.

Ideally the Audi line-up will be in place in 2025. Work on the 2026 car — built to all-new regulations — is allowed from next January, and the input of the presumptive franchise driver or drivers will be important to a competitive launch.

There have long been rumours Audi would like at least one German driver, but the only one on the grid is Nico Hülkenberg, who will likely struggle to shine at Haas.

He might be easier to sell alongside an established star. Carlos Sainz has long been rumoured to have a connection to Seidl and to Audi, with whom his father won the Dakar Rally this year.

THE KEY PLAYERS

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo is one of the most intriguing free agents on the market because he may not a free agent at all. He said last year, upon making his full-time comeback, that he’s committed to the Red Bull family for the rest of his career.

Red Bull Racing is clearly the aim. While he’ll need Pérez to trip up, he could also force the issue with the power of his own form.

But there’s also the prospect of him staying long term with RB. The blueprint for Faenza is for it to move into the frontrunning group in the medium term, but to get there it will need an experienced driver to buy in. Nine-time winner Ricciardo can be that driver — plus his marketability clearly works for a team that has no fewer than two big-money external title sponsors.

Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz is perhaps the grid’s only true free agent, displaced from Ferrari by Lewis Hamilton.

The race-winning Spaniard will have more than 200 starts by the end of the year and will be coming into his prime.

His technical nous was crucial to Ferrari hanging in there in the middle of the season, and his tactical victory in Singapore was superb.

There isn’t a team on the grid that wouldn’t be considering Sainz, yet at the same time it’s hard to see where he best fits in.

Mercedes? If it doesn’t pick young gun Antonelli, Sainz would have to accept he’s there as a stop gap — or he’d have to smash Russell to usurp him for the senior seat.

Red Bull Racing? He would need to cop the tacit number two role in a team dominated emotionally and politically by Verstappen.

Aston Martin? He would need circumstance on his side.

Perhaps his best bet is the future Audi team, where his former McLaren boss Seidl has long been rumoured to have prepared a space for him.

At only 29 years old, he has time to make Audi work, and Sauber is the only team where he might be able to make himself the undisputed lead driver — something he sorely deserves.

Fernando Alonso

Not only do Fernando Alonso’s credentials and ability precede him, but as F1’s de facto villain, you get the sense he’d love to be involved just for the sake of it.

At the start of the year Alonso said Aston Martin would get the right of first refusal if he decided he wanted to race beyond 44 years old.

But he’s also repeatedly emphasised that he’s the only world champion not contracted next year and would be in a “good position to negotiate”.

It’s not certain he’ll want to move. If Aston Martin maintains forward progress, it might be the most competitive seat available to him.

But if Mercedes were to recover form and needed a short-term solution while Antonelli prepared himself for F1, Alonso would surely jump at the chance.

Alex Albon

Contrary to popular belief, Alex Albon is on a three-year deal ending next season, and Williams boss James Vowles has been clear that he wants to convince the Thai driver to stay as the central pillar of the team’s rebuild.

But he added he wouldn’t stand in his way if the right deal came along.

“I have the responsibility of Williams on my shoulders, that’s the most important thing to me,“ he said, per Autosport.

“So should any decision go that way, it’s because I’m very clear in my mind that I’ve made decisions that are correct for the team’s long-term goals and not the short term.”

Rumours are rife that Albon has been contacted by Red Bull Racing about a potential reunion now that he’s found his feet in F1. A Mercedes drive has also been floated.

All that’s clear is that Albon’s stocks are very high in the paddock. Though his contract might set a high price for him, he could yet come into play.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli

You’ll be hearing much more about 17-year-old Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli this season.

By all accounts the Mercedes junior is F1’s next big thing.

He’s a multiple karting champion, double F4 champion and double Formula Regional champion. Now Mercedes has had him skip Formula 3 to make his Formula 2 debut for Prema this year.

He’s talked about as the next Max Verstappen — maybe even a Max Verstappen beater.

If he wins the title championship, he won’t be able to compete in F2 again. Mercedes is clearly leaving the door open to a sensational promotion directly to the works team.

If he were to dominate the series, the dream promotion would be in play.

If he were to take until Abu Dhabi to wrap it up, the German marque could prefer a Williams apprenticeship for its star rather than wait until the end of the F2 season in December to make a call.

The driver market hangs on Mercedes, and Mercedes appears to be is hanging on Antonelli.

THE JUNIORS

Aussie Jack Doohan is foremost in the market among drivers without full-time experience. He’s Alpine’s reserve driver this year after two race-winning seasons in F2, and his simulator and private testing program — as well as FP1 sessions — will make him the most experienced junior on the market.

Alpine would appear to rate him highly enough to have not set him to another racing category this year, keeping him close to the F1 program instead. Both Alpine drivers are out of contract this season.

Ferrari-backed Oliver Bearman will drive in six FP2 sessions for Haas this season. If that’s not an F1 preparation program, nothing is. Assuming he doesn’t take a step backwards in his second F2 campaign, he’ll be in the frame for a full-time Haas debut in 2025.

Williams-sponsored Zak O’Sullivan is a GB3 champion and was runner-up in last year’s F3 campaign. With Logan Sargeant on notice and Albon potentially on the market, a good year from the Briton could swing him promotion to F1.

Kiwi Liam Lawson is surely part of Red Bull’s grand plan, the brand having opted to keep him on reserve duties this year rather than do a deal with another team after his super impressive stand-in work for Ricciardo last year.

THE OTHERS ON THE MARKET

Yuki Tsunoda faces a potential career-deciding year at RB with Lawson waiting in the wings. If he were to be beaten by Ricciardo but the Aussie weren’t to make it to Red Bull Racing, Tsunoda could find himself on the outer.

His long play is to keep the door open to following Honda to Aston Martin in 2026.

Both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon face contract years with what some are tipping as a disastrous car that could see the French squad plummet to the back of the grid. Alpine’s recent managerial bombast means there are no guarantees for either if the Renault-owned team’s season goes badly.

Neither Valtteri Bottas nor Zhou Guanyu was especially impressive in admittedly thoroughly underwhelming machinery last year. Some will wonder whether Zhou has done enough, others will wonder whether Bottas can still do enough given Audi’s looming entry.

Williams boss Vowles says Logan Sargeant must be “the surprise of the season” to keep his seat — unsurprising with the potential opportunity to field superstar junior Antonelli or homegrown O’Sullivan.

Haas’s driver line-up was far from its biggest problem last season, but if it finds itself on surer footing his year, Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen could find themselves in a shootout to keep their seats — assuming both are intent on staying.

Lance Stroll is nominally on the market, but with his father owning the team, it’s difficult to imagine him being let go without a truly catastrophic decline in form.