During the 2022 season, all the drivers at the start of the world championship will have to sell their car for an FP1 session. The proposal, first discussed in 2019, was recently approved by the F1 Commission and will officially enter the 2022 Sporting Regulations after approval by the next FIA World Council.
It was not only a formal passage, the one that took place in the commission, since a team (not among the top-teams) has maintained a line contrary to the provision, having then to surrender before the common will.
Each team, in two FP1 sessions, will therefore have to field a rookie (according to the FIA regulations a rookie is a driver who has competed at most two Grand Prix) while the choice of the weekend will be up to the team.
The stages in which the ‘sprint qualifying’ format will take place will be realistically excluded, and the weekends that will take place on city tracks, where the owners need to take advantage of every minute of testing available.
Who will be the pilots who will benefit from this opportunity? In some cases the choice appears obvious, in others it will be interesting to understand the policy of the individual teams, and as already pointed out by some team principals, in most cases the aim will be to have only one young person to dedicate to the two sessions. THE
n Mercedes the candidate is Nyck De Vries, while Juri Vips should be involved in Red Bull, leaving AlphaTauri the possibility to choose between Liam Lawson and Denis Hauger.
For Ferrari the choice should fall on Robert Shwartzman, officially test-driver of the Scuderia even if not involved in the role of ‘reserve driver’, but there is also Antonio Fuoco as an alternative possibility.
The Russian driver could also be used by Haas if the US team does not use its third driver Pietro Fittipaldi. The Brazilian, having competed in two Grands Prix at the end of the 2020 season, falls within the definition of ‘rookie’.
McLaren should focus on Pato O’Ward, who will finish the Indycar season in September freeing himself for a possible call to take to the track in the stages that Formula 1 will play in the fall in Austin and Mexico City.
An obvious choice for Alpine, Williams and Alfa Romeo Racing (who have respectively Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Théo Pourchaire in their junior programs, while the plans of Aston Martin are not clear, which according to rumors would be precisely the team that did not welcome with the initiative was very welcome.
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