Eyes on emerging talents in Formula 2
Why pay hefty salaries in light of the experience of certain drivers when there are emerging talents ready to replicate Oliver Bearman’s performances if given the chance? This question is obviously making its way into the minds of many team principals and could be a problem for some veterans of the starting grid who are nearing the end of their contracts.
The first name that comes to mind is Valtteri Bottas. Sauber must decide his future also considering that from 2026 the team will definitively race under the Audi name, as the German company has already finalized the purchase of the majority of the team’s shares. Currently, the Hinwil team has the Finnish driver and Guan Yu Zhou, and is on the market tracking Carlos Sainz to make the Spanish driver the beacon of the Audi project.
At the academy level, Sauber-Audi has Zane Maloney among its ranks, the current leader of the F2 standings in his second year in the category after a strong debut in F3 in 2022 when he narrowly missed the title won by Victor by just five points. If the Barbadian driver continues at these levels, it’s very likely that Sauber-Audi might consider him for 2025.
For now, Oliver Bearman is having a complicated season in F2, but after Jeddah, it’s hard not to imagine him in Formula 1 in 2025. The Ferrari Driver Academy no longer has an automatic right to a seat at Haas, but according to journalist Joe Saward, a discount on power units would be more than enough to secure a place at Haas for Bearman alongside Nico Hulkenberg in 2025. In this case, the driver to lose his seat due to the ‘Bearman effect’ would be Kevin Magnussen.
The other team that might need to resort to its academy to complete its line-up is Alpine. The French team is in disastrous condition in terms of performance, and this could push both Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly to look elsewhere. The reserve driver Jack Doohan and the other junior, Victor Martins, could represent low-cost solutions to climb back up while waiting to have the credentials to attract top drivers again.
