Update:There’s only one story in Formula 1 at the moment, and that’s Australians running amok in the driver market.
You know the story by now. Oscar Piastri, Australia’s next big thing, is being lined up to replace Daniel Ricciardo, Australia’s current big thing, by Mark Webber, a former Australian big thing.
Or is there an alternative? In this explosive round of driver negotiations, kicked off by Sebastian Vettel leaving Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso taking his place, you wouldn’t want to discount any possibility.
Ricciardo, according to ESPN’s correspondent Nate Saunders, was informed on the Sunday evening following the Hungarian GP of McLaren’s plans to replace him with Paistri.
McLaren’s team principle Andreas Seidl reportedly delivered Ricciardo with the news, where the Australian had finished a disappointing 15th - well behind his teammate Lando Norris, who finished seventh to snare some crucial championship points.
He is said to be having discussions with the team over a “financial settlement to leave his contract a year earlier than its 2023 expiration date,” according to ESPN.
What’s more, Piastri is said to have only signed a one-year deal with McLaren and the only thing that could stop him from heading to the English team is an appeal from Alpine to the FIA contract recognition board.
Perhaps helping Paistri’s bid to switch teams is Alpine, formerly known as Renault, is reportedly happy to welcome Ricciardo back to the French team after he was one of the grid’s stronger performers in 2020. Alpine believe they can help the Australia rediscover his form.
It’s shockingly comparatively quiet in Maranello, meanwhile, despite the chaos of July in which the team’s title challenge evaporated, but team boss Mattia Binotto has been steadfast in his defence of his engineers and is refusing to relapse into Ferrari’s old axe-swinging HR methods.
No such problems exist at Red Bull, meanwhile, where the team is actively poaching from rival teams — well, one rival team in particular — to fill its growing power unit factory, while Lewis Hamilton is keeping himself busy undertaking different sporting business entirely.
FOUR TEAMS REACH OUT TO RICCIARDO
Ricciardo’s future at McLaren may be in doubt following reports Oscar Piastri has an agreement with the Woking team, but that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of interest in the Aussie on the F1 grid.
ESPN reports that at least four teams have contracted Ricciardo in the past two weeks in a bid to gauge his next move.
Ricciardo has an option in his contract which allows him to leave at the end of the season and could be convinced to make a switch given the developments involving Piastri.
Australian F1 fans will be hoping Ricciardo can recapture his form after the mid-season break but the Piastri drama has ensured it will be difficult for Ricciardo to clear his head.
“To be honest, switching off normally gives me like a natural reset,” he said after last week’s Hungarian Grand Prix, as reported by motorsport.com.
“To a point where I imagine in say 10 days, two weeks into the break, I would have kind of got the holiday out of my system, and then I’ll build that hunger back again.
“So I’ll naturally think about it, after getting time off. That’s normally how it works for me.
“Again, go out with friends, drink some beers, have fun. And then I‘ll get to the point where I start to not feel guilty, but just like alright, time to turn it on again. And then it’s kind of a natural switch that will come back probably after 14 days.
“A bit like last year, kind of start that second half of this season with a positive bang and just to get the ball rolling. The triple header, it’s intense.
“So I think come out and set some strong intentions. That‘s the plan. Obviously, it’s easier said than done. But that’s certainly the plan.”
PIASTRI PANTOMIME
Oscar Piastri’s management-level fallout with Alpine is guaranteed to be the story of the mid-season break, with its conclusion still unclear and potentially still weeks away.
But while there are two leading possible outcomes — he moves into Daniel Ricciardo’s seat at McLaren or is forced to remain at Alpine — a third team has emerged as a smoky contender for his services.
According to the UK’s Times, Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, has also sounded out the Red Bull hierarchy to try to place the Aussie junior at AlphaTauri.
Webber is well connected with Red Bull. Not only did the Queanbeyan native drive for the team during its championship-winning years of 2010–13, but he’s still a Red Bull athlete with a good relationship with energy drink mogul Dietrich Mateschitz.
He’s also a Porsche ambassador, and Porsche is intending to buy into Red Bull Racing and form a join power unit manufacturing business with the brand for 2026.
Yuki Tsunoda is also out of contract at the end of the season, creating a natural opening.
But while the connections exist, AlphaTauri remains an outside chance at best. Red Bull only this week announced an extension of its Honda technical partnership through to 2026, when Porsche will take over engine duties, and is poised to announced new commercial terms with the Japanese marque.
Tsunoda is a Honda-backed driver whose rapid rise through the ranks was in part fuelled by Red Bull’s relationship with Sakura.
AlphaTauri principal Franz Tost also said only last month that Tsunoda had a “good chance” of retaining his seat given his improvement in form this year and despite a string of crashes at the end of June and early July.
Meanwhile, Pierre Gasly confirmed only in June that he would be staying with the team next season.
You’d also have to wonder whether the acrimony of breaking ties with Alpine would be worth switching to a team ranked eighth and little more than a quarter of the French constructor’s points tally so far this season. McLaren is at least roughly on par with Alpine.
But they call it the silly season for a reason, and given how unpredictable it’s already been, you wouldn’t want to rule anything out.
FERRARI WON’T SCAPEGOATS ITS WAY TO SUCCESS
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says he won’t be making wholesale changes to his team during the mid-season break despite a growing list of race-defining catastrophes in recent months.
The Italian team started the season as the championship favourite after Charles Leclerc won two of the first three grands prix to establish a 34-point lead in the drivers standings and a 39-point advantage on the constructors table.
But it took the Scuderia seven more rounds to win another race despite almost always fielding the fastest car. Race after race the team shipped points to Red Bull Racing through either unreliability or human error, particularly through baffling strategy calls.
The latest bungled decision came at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where the team badly strategised Leclerc’s race, including by giving him the hard tyre for what should have been his final stint despite never having used the compound during practice and despite several other drivers struggling badly with it further down the field.
Leclerc was easy pickings for Verstappen, who ended up stripping him of his lead and dominating the race. Leclerc finished sixth to fall 80 points behind the Dutchman, while Ferrari has slipped to 97 points adrift.
But Binotto, whose engineering background as leant the team a calmer and better balanced attitude, said in Budapest that he would stand by his staff, describing mistakes as part of the learning process.
“It’s not a matter of bad luck, and there is nothing to change as well,” Binotto said. “It’s always a matter of continuous learning and building, building experience, building skills.
“Certainly there is something that you need to look at [from the Hungarian Grand Prix] and understand why. But if I look again at the balance of the first half of the season, there is no reason why we should change.
“I think we simply need to address what was wrong [on Sunday], we need to understand and then address [it] and get back competitive at the 12 races so far [before Hungary] and the reason why it could not be the case at the next one.
“We are winning and losing all together. Today it has not been a great one, but I think there is still much potential and a lot of potential.
“We need to focus first to understand the reasons of today, address them, and come back even stronger.”
RED BULL STRIKES NEW HONDA DEAL
Honda will continue supplying Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri with power units until the end of the current rule set in 2025.
The Japanese company attempted to leave Formula 1 at the end of last season to focus its resources and its carbon-neutral goals but was coaxed by Red Bull Racing into a two-year transition period during which its Sakura factory would continue preparing power units before handing over to the newly formed Red Bull Powertrains in Milton Keynes.
That deal quickly morphed into a straight customer deal for 2022 and 2023 to retain Red Bull’s status as a new engine manufacturer for 2026, which will make it eligible for development concessions when it is expected to unite with Porsche, but left it with a two-year gap to plug for engine supply.
However, with Honda recently making regretful noises about withdrawing from the sport just as its power unit propelled Max Verstappen to his maiden title and seems certain to win the championship double this season, the Japanese marque has struck a deal with Red Bull for a new technical partnership running to the end of 2025 to bridge the gap.
“We have agreed to continue supporting Red Bull Powertrains in Formula 1 through [Honda Racing Corporation] following Red Bull’s request to extend our current agreement, which HRC can meet within its existing resources,” HRC president Koji Watanabe said. “Once again, we aim to use our involvement in the pinnacle of motorsport for the development of technologies and of our workforce.”
Last month Watanabe also left the door open to Honda returning to the sport as a constructor in its own right under the new rules starting in 2026. It would be the company’s fifth return to Formula 1.
In Milton Keynes, progress on beefing up Red Bull Powertrains is continuing apace, with the company poaching yet another Mercedes engine chief, this time Phil Prew.
HAMILTON BUYS BRONCOS
Lewis Hamilton has become a part-owner of the Denver Broncos NFL team after buying into the ownership group that purchased the franchise earlier this year.
The Broncos were bought by a consortium led by billionaire Rob Walton of the Walmart-founding Walmart family along with his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband, Greg Penner. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also among the ownership group.
The sale was reportedly worth US$4.65 billion (A$6.7 billion), making it the most expensive deal in the history of US sport ownership changes. The previous highest was the New York Mets sale for US$2.4 billion in 2020.
Rob Walton has an estimated net worth in excess of US$62 billion himself.
This week Hamilton was announced as buying into the ownership group, though the size of his stake in the team is unclear.
“We’re delighted to welcome seven-time Formula 1 world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton to our ownership group,” the Walton-Penner group said in a statement. “He is a champion competitor who knows what it takes to lead a winning team and a fierce advocate for global equality, including in his own sport.
“With over 100 race wins, Lewis is considered the most successful F1 driver of all time. His resilient spirit and standard of excellence will be an asset to the ownership group and the Broncos organisation.”
It’s not the first sporting venture Hamilton’s been involved in. Most recently he entered a team into the inaugural season of Extreme E, the electric off-road racing championship now in its second season.
Earlier this year he joined with Serena Williams in an unsuccessful bid led by British businessman Martin Broughton to buy English Premier League club Chelsea. The team was eventually sold to a US-led consortium for £4.25 billion (A$7.46 billion).
