The five men who could replace Vettel at Ferrari.
The news of Sebastian Vettel leaving Ferrari at the end of 2020 has sent the postponed F1 season into a premature driver-market frenzy. Vettel leaves the Scuderia with an impressive record, having brought the fight to Lewis Hamilton and the ever-dominant Mercedes multiple times over a five-year stint. All that’s left to say is ‘Grazie Seb’, whether he takes his steps forward into his retirement, or moves elsewhere on the grid for 2021.
But, losing a four-time World Drivers’ Champion leaves a big hole in any team, regardless of how talented the de-facto №1 driver Charles Leclerc might be. This is a gap that needs to be filled, and these are the men who can do so.
The Favourite: Carlos Sainz Jr. is coming off the season of his life, which is coincidentally his first season with a rejuvenated McLaren.
Finishing sixth in the World Driver’s Championship, he effectively broke the monopoly of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull on the top six positions — with thanks to Pierre Gasly’s astoundingly poor start to the 2019 calendar. He’s an experienced driver, with a total of 82 grand prix between three teams under his belt (Toro Rosso, Renault and McLaren) and has backed himself wherever he went. It’s unconfirmed gospel that Sainz left the Red Bull drivers program due to not being given a seat in the top car for the 2019 season, so he left for the greener pastures of Woking, and with McLaren proved that he is one of the finer drivers on the Formula One grid.
The Underdog: Daniel Ricciardo made a mistake, leaving Red Bull.
Unlike Sainz at McLaren, he hasn’t had the car to prove himself with the Renault Sport F1 Team. That being said, it is a known fact that Ricciardo is a top driver, with the quality to win a World Championship. He’s shown this with momentous wins in Canada, Baku, Malaysia, along with a cementing drive to win the Monaco Grand Prix in 2018. It doesn’t need to be said that Ricciardo would be an incredible driver for the Prancing Horse, but it’s highly unlikely that he’d be willing to play second fiddle to the Monegasque Charles Leclerc.
The Youth: When looking at Ferrari’s driver academy, Antonio Giovinazzi is the man who is next in line for a seat in the red car.
Currently driving for Alfa Romeo (fka. Sauber), he was embarrassingly outraced by his teammate in 2019, Kimi Raikkonen — who happens to be the last Ferrari World Champion. Kimi achieved over triple the points that Giovinazzi claimed in Formula One World Championship, showing that Giovinazzi hasn’t yet honed his natural talent. Whilst the appointment of Antonio would enhance Charles Leclerc as a definitive №1 driver in the same way that Mercedes and Red Bull have done with Hamilton and Verstappen, I personally don’t think Giovinazzi is developed enough for a seat in a top team, even as a second driver.
The Dark Horse: Sergio Perez is unanimously agreed to be the most underrated driver in Formula One.
The Mexican hero has dragged podiums and points from cars that have no right to be there throughout his nine years in the sport. Due to his loyalty to the Racing Point (fka. Force India) team, many forget that Perez is a product of the Ferrari driver academy, and claimed three podiums with a Ferrari-powered Sauber in his second F1 campaign. If Ferrari decide to look for experience, Perez has it in abundance, whilst also showing supreme ability to control a race and drive beyond his or the car’s perceived ability. At this stage in his career, he’d be likely to take a №2 role to Leclerc, whilst Ferrari guarantee a driver that can fight off Leclerc’s rivals.
The Pipe Dream: It just sounds so right. Fernando Alonso in a Ferrari. Beautiful.
Possibly the unluckiest driver in history in terms of transferring to teams, Alonso mirrors Vettel in that he is a driver who arguably should have more World Championships than he has. Coincidentally, they also had the same average positions in the Driver’s Championship whilst driving for Ferrari. Alonso is one of the greatest drivers to ever put foot-to-pedal in racing, and it would be incredible to see him show this again at the pinnacle of motorsport. Due to age of 38, you could see him complementing the prodigious talent of the 21-year-old Charles Leclerc, who grabbed an incredulous win at Monza in 2019, the first Ferrari driver to do so since Alonso himself, nine years earlier.
