Hamilton’s Driver Market Domino Effect

Is Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari move a good sign for the driver market?

Getty Images/Lars Baron

When Lewis Hamilton dropped the shock news that he would end his 11-year stint with Mercedes on Thursday, the musical chairs game of Formula 1 seat swapping resumed. 

Hamilton will join Ferrari in 2025 alongside Charles Leclerc, leaving Carlos Sainz with an uncertain future. The transition jolted fans and insiders alike: Hamilton’s long history at Mercedes included a number one seat with seven Drivers’ World Championship wins and eight Constructors’ World Championship trophies. But Hamilton also voiced complaints concerning the drivability of the car last season and looked for greener pastures — as green as a $100 million salary — on the other side of the paddock. 

The news came after a mundane silly season, the slot of time when seats free up and contracts are announced, that seemed to close shop as this year’s preparations commenced. Hamilton’s decision to conclude his contract on British soil was a welcome surprise ahead of the 2024 season as the driver lineup remains the same as in 2023. 

The result of the lack of open seats means up-and-coming talent like the Formula 2 2023 World Champion, Théo Pourchaire, must wait around for one of the 20 F1 seats to open up come 2025. Andretti’s bid rejection as an eleventh team, plus the steep $200 million price for entry, slims the potential for two extra open seats. 

On one hand, Hamilton’s move shakes things up and promises, or threatens, to upend the careers of decade-long F1 mainstays. If Hamilton’s spot at Ferrari leaves Red Bull interested in a free agent Sainz, where does Sergio “Checo” Perez go? If Aston Martin snatches up the Spaniard to join Fernando Alonso, will Lance Stroll’s potential exit mean his father’s team ownership will be unstable? If Alex Albon moves onto Mercedes after his 2025 commitments at Williams are fulfilled, who fills his place? Who takes Hamilton’s place in 2025: A youngster from Mercedes’ stockpile of junior drivers like Kimi Antonelli, a second-chance reserve driver like Mick Schumacher or a current driver like Alonso or Esteban Ocon? 

The move is the first domino in a series of unknowns as 12 drivers will close out 2024 with uncertain futures in the sport when their contracts expire. 

Those unknowns and Hamilton’s shuffling of the driver deck could help tackle the supply of young, hungry and talented drivers, yet it also proves that older ones aren't letting up.

In the 1950s, the average F1 driver age was 34. By the 2010s, that age had dropped to 27. In the decades between, the average F1 driver age steadily declined as junior series became structured and driver development programs swelled with graduation rates. Paired with steady retirement ages averaging between 36 and 37 years old, like Sebastian Vettel’s retirement in 2022 at 35, the cap on age has held strong. 

But F1’s 2024 lineup of drivers is defying the odds. The average driver age will be 29. Just two years ago, it was 26 years old. 

When Hamilton joins Ferrari in a year, he will be 40. The British racing driver’s seat swap takes up one of only 20 spots that are highly sought after — leaving young drivers who should have unquestionable futures in F1 to seek contracts in America and Japan.

Despite a large crop of young drivers, recent retirements have resulted in a thread of veteran drivers returning to the sport. Even further down the grid, teams are signing on former F1 drivers rather than giving young ones a chance in an elite seat. Haas F1 Team, for example, has Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg signed on until the end of 2024. Consistently towards the back of the grid in racing order, one of the two seats would give a developing driver a spot in F1 without the pressure or high stakes of a top team. 

There’s nothing wrong with an older grid. In fact, it does wonders for proving that at 42, in Alonso’s case, you can still outperform fresh-faced 21-year-olds. But a lack of turnover does cause issues as F1 feeder series churn out talent who sit around without a chance. 

F1 is in a unique position: the supply of drivers is at a record high and growing. In 2015, only four drivers completed the Red Bull junior program. In 2023, 12 drivers competed across Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula 4 and regional single-seater series in the Red Bull Academy alone. After two decades of trial and error, F1 driver academies have developed a system for spotting talent at younger ages. The result? A factory of future world champions without a racing seat to show off those carefully crafted skills. 

Rather than the old guard passing the torch, young drivers are having to broaden their options. That isn't always a bad thing. Logan Sargeant has expressed that the F1 ladder isn't effective with a huge discrepancy in talent and speed between F2 and F1. 

“I think F2 is a great series that has great drivers, but I think the gap between the cars is probably a bit too big for what it should be,” Sargeant told Motorsport.com. “There are just so many more fine details in F1, and there’s just so many more things that add into performance than just getting in the car and driving like you do in F2.” 

Sargeant’s current teammate, Albon, said in The High Performance Podcast that leaving F1 in 2021 after being kicked out of Red Bull’s second seat and winning the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) was one of the best experiences in molding him into a driver the championship-winning team is reportedly suddenly interested in again. 

Young drivers signing to Super Formula after F2 could be just what Sargeant was hinting at. The low-key Japanese motorsport series was ranked as the second fastest single-seater competition behind F1, with some drivers outperforming F1’s big names on the Suzuka circuit. Super Formula has also bred some of the best talent in racing: Michael Schumacher, Satoru Nakajima, Eddie Irvine, André Lotterer, Kazuki Nakajima, Kamui Kobayashi, Pierre Gasly, Stoffel Vandoorne, Nick Cassidy and Pato O’Ward. 

It also promises to develop the champions of tomorrow with Pourchaire, Liam Lawson and Ritomo Miyata recently competing in the series. 

As F1 fails to conjure up spots for the growing gaggle of up-and-comers, series like Super Formula are happily snatching up some of F1’s most promising young talent.

But if the driver market doesn't begin to spin by 2026, some of the most promising young talent could spend years in a series that is only decreasing in viewership. 

Up until last year, an F2 championship win nearly guaranteed an F1 spot a year or two later. Charles Leclerc won in 2017 and joined Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 the next year with a promotion to Ferrari in 2019. Schumacher’s 2020 F2 win granted him a spot as a Haas F1 Team driver in 2021 and Oscar Piastri took a year off between winning F2 in 2021 and joining McLaren in 2023.

Previously, drivers who have finished anywhere between first and fifth in F2 have gone on to compete in F1.

Yuki Tsunoda finished third in 2020 and had a spot on the F1 grid the following year, along with Zhou Guanyu who finished third in 2021 and joined F1 in 2022. Sargeant, who finished fourth in the 2022 F2 World Championship, was granted an F1 seat despite Lawson and Pourchaire finishing ahead of him. Nicolas Latifi finished sixth in the 2017 F2 World Championship, ninth in 2018 and second (behind Nyck de Vries) in 2019 and would go on to have a seat in F1 the following year. 

But starting in 2022, F2 champions haven’t had the same guaranteed spot and current top junior drivers are left without a clear path forward.

Felipe Drugovich won the F2 World Championship in 2022 and — despite finishing just behind Max Verstappen and ahead of Alpine, Williams and McLaren when filling in for an injured Stroll in 2023 F1 preseason testing — has yet to claim a seat in F1.

The 2023 F2 championship standings were the polar opposite of 2018. In 2018, George Russell, Lando Norris and Albon would finish the championship on the F2 podium steps. All three entered F1 the following year as 2019 rookies. In 2023, Pourchaire, Frederik Vesti and Jack Doohan rose to the top of the standings. None of them were offered a spot as full-time F1 drivers in 2024. 

With more talent aging out of F2, young drivers are split between making a name for themselves in other series or waiting around for an F1 seat that may never come. Vesti and Pourchaire are headed to European Le Mans Series and Super Formula. But Doohan said that he turned down a seat in Super Formula and Hypercar, along with the opportunity to become a household American racing name in IndyCar, for a singular goal: F1. 

While Pourchaire will serve as Stake F1 Team’s reserve driver in 2024, a handful of F1 reserve seats are filling up with drivers who have long graduated from F2 and excelled in other racing series. Schumacher, who already had two years in F1 before being dropped by Haas, will stay on in 2024 as a backup driver for Mercedes while McLaren signed on 29-year-old Toyota Gazoo Racing and former Super Formula driver Ryō Hirakawa and IndyCar’s O’Ward. 

Reserve seats typically act as a test for young drivers. Lawson’s performance in 2023 while standing in for AlphaTauri’s injured Daniel Ricciardo showed massive potential and proved, similar to Drugovich, that the 21-year-old could handle a full-time F1 seat. But F1 teams aren’t all handing those reserve spots to their development drivers, further leaving youngsters without time in the car aside from the few mandatory F1 tests.

The driver market is only projected to become more congested.

F1 Academy, the all-female racing series, aims to fulfill its promise of creating a pipeline for female drivers into F1 by awarding super license points starting this upcoming season. The decision is a leap forward for women in the sport, but what good is it if there aren’t any spots open in the big leagues?

F1’s supply and demand issue doesn’t fall on Hamilton’s shoulders. However, the driver market has changed drastically since he entered F1. For a 22-year-old Hamilton, F1 came right after dominating the Euro Series and GP2 when F1’s current feeder series weren’t operating. After winning the equivalent at 20, Pourchaire had options but none of them promised a slot in the elite racing series. 

“I am the third F1 Champion in a row who is not promoted to F1,” Pourchaire told Sports Illustrated. “As F2 Champion, I think I deserved my place… It’s not because you are titled in F2 that you are in F1, but frankly, I am disappointed, because I am champion, I have achieved good results, I have done my best.” 

“The job I was given at the Sauber Academy was to win the championship and I did that. That’s how it is, I’m just focusing on the future.”