Why rookies are suddenly back in fashion in F1

Following several successful cameos in recent months, Formula 1 is set to reverse a trend by welcoming an influx of rookie drivers in 2025.

For the first time in history, the 2024 Formula 1 grid featured an unchanged driver line-up compared to the one that saw out the previous season, with zero newcomers lining up in Bahrain. The contrast with 2025 could hardly be much bigger, with four expected rookies – and possibly a fifth – on the grid in Melbourne amid a flurry of drivers changes.

Following the Singapore Grand Prix, Red Bull confirmed Liam Lawson would replace Daniel Ricciardo at its RB team for the remainder of the season and while no mention was made of 2025, the New Zealander will likely line up in a Red Bull-backed car next year for his first full-time campaign. He will join fellow rookies Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, Alpine’s Jack Doohan and Oliver Bearman at Haas. There is also potential for a fifth debutant at Sauber, with incumbent Valtteri Bottas being weighed up against Williams’ surprise star Franco Colapinto and McLaren protege Gabriel Bortoleto.

There are several reasons for why 2025 could be billed as the ‘Year of the Rookie’, and naturally, coincidence is one of them. Teams are limited to the talent pool that is available and ready for the jump at the right time and a generational talent like Antonelli, that Mercedes decided to promote earlier than planned, doesn’t come around every year.

But if one aspect connects the drivers mentioned above, it is their astonishing level of preparation, dovetailing a career scaling the FIA’s junior ladder with untold hours of simulator running and private testing duties. It helped explain why McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was so quick to adapt to F1 last year, and it has also paid dividends for Bearman’s Ferrari cameo in Saudi Arabia or Colapinto’s performances aboard the Williams recently.

“I think it is a testament to all of the academies,’ Jock Clear, who heads Ferrari’s Driver Academy and coaches Charles Leclerc, told the F1 Nation podcast. “How on earth is it possible that Bearman can get in a car that he virtually hasn’t driven and qualify P11 and race to P7 in his very first event, having never tested that car? I think the simulators now are very good, and that is a natural progression of the technology.

“As soon as you say to an F1 team: ‘You can no longer go testing’, then F1 teams will be quite aggressively developing some other way to do exactly the same job. Nobody in F1 ever accepts if you can’t go testing, we’ll probably just be less prepared than we used to be. No, everyone in F1 says: ‘Right, how do we make sure we are just as well prepared as we used to be?’

“The fidelity of simulators is at such a good level now that what we see with Colapinto and with Ollie is the result of that. Actually, when they get here, it’s not all alien to them. They know what to do with the tyres. They know what to expect. The virtual circuit that they drive on in the simulator is so good.

Franco Colapinto, Williams FW46

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

“A lot of what we do here with our young drivers is in the classroom. We give them lessons and we talk about how the car works, what the brake balance is doing and what you need to do with the tyres and I hope that what you’re seeing in Ollie and Franco is a result of that education.”

But, as veteran Fernando Alonso points out, no simulator or old car test can replicate the competitive stress of a grand prix weekend, and he has praised the likes of Colapinto and Bearman for getting up to speed so quickly in F1’s daunting paddock.

“I think they did an incredible job and credit to them,” Alonso said after mature performances from Colapinto and Bearman around the challenging streets of Singapore.

“They are more prepared, they do more simulator, they do some TPC and some of the testing, but it’s not the same as racing and they had the pressure of the racing and the street circuits and things like that, and they did an incredible job.

“The championship is also 24 races and they need to perform at this top level for 10 months and that’s probably another challenge, but so far they’ve been incredibly good and this is good for the sport and the future.”

To get a better read on how a young driver performs under pressure, there is always the pipeline of F3 and F2, although F1’s traditional feeder series haven’t proved to be the most reliable way to pick out the stars of tomorrow in recent years. Following generational talent Piastri, the next few F2 champions Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire failed to break down the door to F1.

One look at this year’s championship shows Mercedes and Ferrari have put more emphasis on their own F1-related work with Antonelli and Bearman respectively than on their F2 results with Prema. Meanwhile, none of the actual title contenders will be on the 2025 grid unless Bortoleto finds a way into the Sauber seat.

Oliver Bearman, Reserve Driver, Ferrari and Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images

But Clear believes Bearman’s head-turning performances in Jeddah have acted as a catalyst for the increasing confidence across the grid to start trusting youth over experience, which was initially deemed so crucial to help get the most out of the complicated ground-effect generation of cars. He also thinks it has raised the profile of the F2 grid as a whole.

“The great thing about the Ollie experience in Saudi is it effectively vindicated and valued the whole F2 grid,” he explained. “We’ve had a history of believing that if you win F2, it’s only fair that you get an opportunity to move to F1. Well, I think the mindset needs to change to the whole of F2 needs looking at. You’re never going to win the F2 championship and not be a good driver, but there will be people out there who haven’t won the F2 championship and you don’t want them to be missing out just because it didn’t go their way on a couple of occasions.

“Lando [Norris] was runner-up in the year that George [Russell] won it and Lando is just as meriting of a place in F1 as George is. The point with Ollie is he had only done one F2 race this year when Fred [Vasseur] said to me: ‘Carlos [Sainz] isn’t very well – we’re going to have to put Ollie in the car. I hope he’s ready’. And I said to Fred I have no doubt he’s ready.

“We didn’t need to see what he was doing in F2 to already know he was a guy who was going to be able to cut it in F1. I think that’s healthy, because if you just wait until they’re 18-19 years old and then decide whether you want them in F1, you’re not looking deeply enough into what you need in an F1 car.”

Speaking to Autosport, Colapinto’s F2 team principal Sander Dorsman welcomed the fact that F1 teams are taking a punt of youth. “Of course, I understand people in F1 are holding onto good drivers who have proven themselves, the established names,” the MP Motorsport boss said. “But at some point, it’s time for a change. I think this all shows that F2 is a fantastic education for F1 and that once in a while it’s worth taking a risk, and it pays off immediately.”

That also raises some interesting questions for Red Bull, whose protege Isack Hadjar is currently fighting Bortoleto for the championship. “I find it so hard to read form in Formula 2 these days,” Red Bull chief Christian Horner said. “When you look at the job that Bearman’s done, when he jumped in both at Ferrari and one of the toughest tracks on the calendar in Saudi he looked like a veteran. And then again against a tough team-mate with Nico Hulkenberg more recently.

“And then Colapinto has been a complete surprise, because he was largely unnoticed in F2. Nobody was even talking about him, and then he jumped in that Williams and in the couple of races that he’s done, he’s been exceptional. He’s been really, really impressive.

“It’s so, so difficult to tell. Does that mean that Hadjar beating all of them is another step up? Until we give these guys a chance, we won’t know.”

With teams gravitating towards keeping a stable driver line-up between 2025 and 2026’s new regulations, perhaps next year was always going to be the best opportunity to blood in a youngster.

But with enduring question marks over Red Bull’s long-term driver line-up, don’t be too surprised if someone like Hadjar soon follows in the footsteps of the ‘Class of 2025’. And if Bortoleto and Colapinto miss out in 2025, perhaps F1 fans won’t have to wait longer than 2026 to see the next batch of youngsters claim their place on the grid.