Team bosses have hit back at suggestions that Formula One’s driver market has become ‘stale’ and ‘conservative’.
Many have commented that teams appear more reluctant to change drivers than used to be the case. And indeed early in the Monza weekend Williams became the latest team after Mercedes, Ferrari and Sauber to confirm an unchanged driver line-up for 2016. Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Force India at least are expected to follow suit also.
Responding to a question from Grand Prix Times in Monza Force India’s Bob Fernley denied that anything in the driver market had changed and spoke of the importance of stability to an F1 team, as well as that there is no point in changing drivers that are doing well.
“I don’t think there’s any reason to assume that you’re not going to move drivers and change drivers,” he said. “I think you’re always looking for stability and if you have drivers that are performing well, you want to retain them.”
Red Bull’s Christian Horner concurred on the point of there being little to gain from changing drivers for the sake of it: “Changing drivers in any team is quite a big thing,” he explained. “The drivers are pretty fundamental components and I think that if ever you’re going to change, you want to change for the better.
“Red Bull continues to be investing in young talent so we’ve got quite a large talent pool but of course you always want to put your best foot forward.”
Some bosses also spoke of their peculiar circumstances that support keeping the same drivers right now.
Maurizio Arrivabene of Ferrari noted that stability is particularly important for the current Ferrari team which has experienced a lot of recent personnel changes elsewhere. “It’s quite a new team and we would like to keep the stability in the team and to have a clear goal for everybody,” he said.
In the case of Kimi Raikkonen, Arrivabene added that his past achievements were part of the reason for keeping him on: “We confirmed Kimi after Hungary. Again, he’s a World Champion, he’s the last World Champion with Ferrari. We don’t have to forget that.”
Matthew Carter of Lotus however outlined the very unusual case at the Enstone team right now, as it awaits an imminent takeover: “I think we’re probably in a slightly different position in that we have two drivers under contract” he said. “The only reason that we haven’t announced our driver line-up for next year is that we’re waiting to see what pans out in the next few weeks, month or so. So absolutely no reason to change, both drivers under contract but I think there’s probably wider issues to play at Lotus at the moment.”
