Friday, February 24, 2023

A Brief look at this year’s Formula 1 Rookie Crop

But who’ll ultimately come out on Top between these three Rookies?

 

Logan Sargeant

Williams Racing

Car No. 2

DOB: 12/31/00, Age 22

 

Florida’s Logan Sargeant becomes the first Yank’ Driver in Formula 1 since 2016 Indianapolis 500 Rookie winner Alexander Rossi’s very brief five race stint for Manor Marussia F1 in 2015. As Sargeant finished fourth Overall in last year’s FIA Formula 2 Championship to secure the necessary points to secure His requisite FIA Super license. For which if accomplishing, then Williams Team Principal Jost Capito had promised to elevate Logan to an F1 drive at Williams, as the departing Nicholas Latifi’s replacement.

 

And instead of rehashing what I already scribbled here upon No Fenders, I’ll direct Y’all to my previous Logan Sargeant tome instead.

 

http://www.nofenders.net/2022/10/fia-f2-americas-next-formula-1-driver.html

 

Nyck de Vries

Scuderia AlphaTauri

Car No. 21

DOB: 2/6/95, Age 28

 

For Mwah, Nyck de Vries is the most underrated of our trio, or more likely most overlooked. As the totally deserving Dutchman looked set to not get a proper chance in Formula 1.

 

As De Vreis won the 2019 FIA Formula  2 Championship and then went on to win the 2020-21 Formula E Championship for Mercedes. Along with winning both the 2014 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 Alps titles.

 

De Vries got His chance to finally debut in F1 at last year’s Italian Grand Prix, substituting for Williams Alex Albon who needed an emergency Appendectomy operation!

 

Where Nyck dually impressed everybody with His ninth place finish, scoring two F1 points in His maidn Grand Prix. Subsequently being snapphed up by Red Bull, whose got some other “Dutchie” on it’s books. As the departing Pierre Gasly’s replacement alongside Yuki Tsunoda. For which I’ll be interested to see if De Vries outperforms the “Veteran” Tsunoda.

 

Oscar Piastri

McLaren F1 Team

Car No. 81

DOB: 4/6/01, Age 21

 

Oscar Piastri made News last year during Formula One’s Summer Break, when the Aussie’ informed Alpine He wouldn’t be driving for them!

 

Like many FIA Formula 2 Champions, Piastri who won the 2021 title was spending a year on the sidelines as Alpine’s Test and Reserve Driver, and was expected to fill Fernando Alonso’s seat in 2023 initially. As Alpine had to make a decision on who they’d keep this year, for which we All know Alonso solved that by unexpectedly jumping to Aston Martin.

 

Yet Alpine hand’t done enough to keep it’sYoung Gun, and ‘Ol Zakery Brown who made waves on both sides of the Atlantic secured Oscar’s services as DannyRic’s, aka Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement, for which the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board subsequently ruled in McLaren’s favour.

 

Piastri, a potential F1 Prodigy, won the Formula Renault Eurocup, Fia Formula 3 and FIA Formula 2 Championships consecutively between 2019-2021. And I think He’s the first driver since Charles Leclerc to win the F3 and F2 titles back-to-back?

 

Thus it will be interesting to see how much the young Australian can push McLaren’s Superstar driver Lando Norris, who seemingly hasn’t been challenged by a teammate yet? Although I think Carlos Sainz, Jr. must have given Him a Hard time before moving onto Ferrari. While I still Don’t understand what happened to Ricciardo at McLaren…