Alfa Romeo Racing confirmed two months ago that it would change it’s driver line-up for the 2022 Formula One season, after signing Chinese racing driver who competed in the FIA Formula 2 Championship for UNI-Virtuosi Racing from 2019 to 2021, Guanyu Zhou, and the more experienced Valtteri Bottas, who moved to Alfa Romeo after several years with Mercedes.
This means that for the first time since Alfa Romeo signed an engine agreement with Scuderia Ferrari, the team will not give a Formula 1 seat to one of the Maranello team’s Academy drivers.
Charles Leclerc made his Formula 1 debut with the team who at that moment was known as Sauber, in 2018 and the Monegasue driver moved to Ferrari the following season, with Antoio Giovinazzi taking his place from 2019. Last summer, Alfa Romeo team principal Fred Vasseur said that he would have free choice regarding his driver line-up for 2022 despite continuing negotiations over extending the engine deal with Ferrari.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!
At the same time, Fred Vasseur admitted that his team remains open to the possibility of signing a Ferrari junior in the next seasons, depending on the situation and circumstances: “It’s not because we decided to go for another option that we won’t have the possibility to work with Ferrari again in the future. It has to be on a case-by-case basis, because the driver collaboration, you can’t plan for the next 10 years [and say] ‘OK, the next 10 years, you will get a rookie’. Ferrari don’t need to have a driver [graduate to F1] every single year. Also because at the entry of the pipe, they don’t have a driver every single year. We need to work on a case-by-case basis, and this is completely understood with both parties.” – Frédéric Vasseur explained.
While Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi were full time drivers for Alfa, a number of other Ferrari young drivers got the chance to test for Alfa Romeo in the last few years. Formula 2 2020 runner-up Callum Ilott was Alfa Romeo’s test and reserve driver during the previous season while Mick Schumacher took part in one free practice session before joining Haas, where he made his Formula 1 debut in 2021.
Ferrari confirmed its driver academy plans for 2022 a few days ago, as the Maranello team will not have any driver in Formula 2 this year.
Robert Shwartzman will spend one year on the sidelines working as Ferrari’s official test driver, but could be in line for some Formula 1 practice runs under the new rules that require all teams to give the possibility to young drivers to take part in at least two FP1 sessions each season.
Leave a Reply