The harsh realities of being an F1 outcast

Not many 24-year-olds get the opportunity to be put in charge of something as prestige and downright cool as a karting academy. Fewer still would be in a position to have it named after them, or to have their venture backed by a major racing organisation. In that context, with any kind of perspective, Sergey Sirotkin's current predicament is no sob story.

And yet, as he very candidly acknowledges shortly after the unveiling of his junior karting academy - launched under the banner of his backer and major motorsport player SMP Racing - his new set-up is "good, important and the right thing to do" but is not what he what he'd imagined he'd be doing at this point in his career.

Sirotkin spent the academy launch day presenting his new programme, answering numerous queries from the attendant children and their parents as well as the media, and going up against challengers in several heats at the indoor track that will host the academy. Admittedly, the extent of the 'challenge' he faced from Autosport was avoiding my stricken kart after I'd spun on a low-grip patch... twice.

But even taking the obvious gulf in skill aside, there was something surreal about seeing Sirotkin dart past you at a Moscow indoor track. Here's a guy who, by age 24, has won races in a whole host of junior categories, including Formula Renault 3.5 and GP2, and has worked for four separate Formula 1 teams. This time two years ago he would've been somewhere near Williams's Grove headquarters, preparing for his grand prix debut, and it's impossible to shake the feeling he should be doing something similar today.

Sirotkin has not contested a major motorsport race since last year's Le Mans 24 Hours. This leads Autosport to put to him that a karting academy comes as a way of relacing the self expression a regular racing programme would have provided, to which he says: "It doesn't have to be one or the other.

"But, yes, this is indeed a way of expressing myself, maybe another realisation of all these emotions that I've felt during my career, that unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - wasn't the most straightforward.

"And it's something you want to share, to have an impact somewhere that's not necessarily dependent on this world of Formula 1 and its endless movement."

But don't take that to mean that Sirotkin was among those who soured on F1 after arriving there. On the contrary, he has nothing but good things to say about the teams and people he'd worked with and clearly misses the job of a grand prix driver, even if his only season yielded just a single point in the uncompetitive Williams FW41.

Losing his drive at the end of 2018 had hurt, and time hasn't exactly healed the wound. And though he hardly embarrassed himself during his sole F1 campaign, Sirotkin is both clever and honest enough to acknowledge that his time as an F1 full-timer is probably over for good. After all, if it is, he isn't the first promising driver to have been spat out of the championship after one year, and he won't be the last.

"I'm very self-critical, and to realise at 23-24 that what you've worked towards all your life hasn't worked out, it's tough," he says. "It's really tough.

Though Sirotkin hopes to have a full season lined up somewhere in 2020 and is working towards it, his rhetoric suggests this has proven an even bigger challenge than remaining embedded in the F1 paddock

"To be honest, when you don't think about it, it doesn't really hurt, but every day it happens that you're reminded about it. I'm not emotionless about it, it's not the least important thing in my life, so for me it's always been quite painful and will be that way."

Mind you, his relationship with F1 doesn't have to be over. Sirotkin was still regularly in the paddock last year despite losing his drive, as he represented Renault and McLaren in a reserve driver role, doing simulator work for the latter and helping the former with its 21-inch Pirelli tyre testing programme.

Just recently, the likes of Brendon Hartley and Pascal Wehrlein found refuge in Ferrari simulator gigs after being cast out from the grid. And someone like Oliver Turvey, though never an F1 starter, has combined a long-time role as a McLaren test and development driver with other racing programmes.

Asked if something like this would appeal to him, Sirotkin says: "It always depends on the context of the exact offer.

"I'm a not a huge fan of simulator work, but I have a certain understanding and vision that, for example at McLaren, was quite valued, as far as I know, when I worked in their simulator.

"But you still want to, one way or another, every day of your life be doing something to get you closer to a certain goal. And when you're just flying to races as a reserve, well aware that you're not contributing all that much to the team's overall accomplishments, it's probably less enticing than when you're doing real work with the team, towards a common goal.

"I can't say it's my life's dream to be in a situation like that, to do simulator work and combine that with racing elsewhere, but if it gives me an opportunity to keep racing, in a competitive series where I could fight for wins, to appease my racing driver ambitions, while also fully dedicating yourself to an F1 team's cause [in a simulator role] - well, it's a good option to discuss."

Logic dictates, though, that it's an option that would already have been discussed for this coming year. After all, Sirotkin's Williams replacement Robert Kubica was courted by Haas and Racing Point for this very role before ending up with Alfa Romeo. Surely, Sirotkin - a fast driver with an engineering degree and, by all accounts, a good work ethic - should be getting calls from those teams as well?

"It's difficult to answer directly," he says. "I think I better not. But I can say - the role of a purely simulator driver, it's an offer that from us would require a very thorough analysis as to what we'd get from it.

"For instance, if you know that the year after you're getting into the race line-up - OK, no problem whatsoever, it's all very logical and justifiable. But when it's just a way to remain within the F1 system... well, it all depends on the context of a concrete offer."

But a racing driver's priority is to race, and though Sirotkin "really hopes" to have a full season lined up somewhere in 2020 and is continuing to work towards it, his rhetoric suggests this has proven an even bigger challenge than remaining embedded in the F1 paddock.

After losing his Williams drive, Sirotkin had the fallback of a part-time WEC schedule with SMP, along with test outings in Formula E and DTM. But SMP's LMP1 programme is history as of the summer of 2019, while the Formula E grid is full and each of its teams has a whole gallery of free-agent drivers with more FE experience that it could turn to before Sirotkin. As for DTM, the series has seen calmer days, having just shed four entries with R-Motorsport's shock withdrawal and with most of its full-time drives filled.

"Right now I understand that the driver market is more saturated than ever," Sirotkin says. "If a few years ago someone told me that after Formula 1 it'd be this hard to find yourself a good seat in another series, I wouldn't have believed it.

"And now my personal experience shows it to be the case, that the driver market is packed and that many drivers are tied into concrete teams, manufacturers, programmes, and to get into those systems that are already functioning and have their own drivers, it's quite hard."

"It's really strange. I think it would've been morally easier if you never made it in F1, than when you've made it, you've understood what it is, and then you've lost it..." Sergey Sirotkin

Sirotkin's story is not unique among the ranks of F1's 'premature' graduations. After all, how long has it been since you've seen Charles Pic, Rio Haryanto or Jolyon Palmer in a major series? Sirotkin supposes that even Nico Hulkenberg - a driver of very high stature and who Sirotkin himself rates very highly after their time together at Renault - may now find himself in a similar boat.

"To put it bluntly, all the potential seats, series, championships, teams that we were really interested in, they were all already tied up in a certain system, with certain drivers, etc," Sirotkin continues.

"To just turn up from the outside... yeah, we'd start a dialogue, but again, when they have under their wing - and I'm not talking about a certain team, I'm talking about different teams and championships - when they already have certain drivers inside the system, it always seems preferable to pick those drivers."

Coupled with the harsh mental reality of having to give up on the F1 dream he'd worked for so long, this understandably puts Sirotkin in a peculiar frame of mind.

"It's really strange. I think it would've been morally easier if you never made it in F1, than when you've made it, you've understood what it is, and then you've lost it.

"When you still have that target that you're working towards, it's easier than when you've sort of reached the target but not really, and you realise that you won't get to fully accomplish your goal."

It's hard to imagine a situation like this in most other team sports. For example, though many people who make it to the very top level in football likewise don't stay there very long, in most cases they can at least count on reasonably steady employment and competitive opportunities afterwards, barring a complete implosion or a total loss of motivation.

Sirotkin has suffered neither - and though opinions will vary on just how much time he warranted in F1 given the persistent supply of talent and the obviously limited place on the grid, that he's shown enough to warrant a place somewhere at the top level of motorsport is clear.

If Sirotkin doesn't get that chance for 2020, it will admittedly benefit those kids that have signed up for his karting academy, as logic dictates they will consequently get more frequent access to their world-class driver coach.

But if that does come to fruition, shouldn't the world of motorsport be left scratching its head as to how drivers of such pedigree - and often of such a young age - end up stuck on the sidelines?