The next dominoes that could fall in the F1 driver market

Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull/AlphaTauri return at Formula 1’s 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix represents the first act of this year’s driver market shake-up.

Although there are few impending contracts expiring among the big-hitting squads, other than the ongoing rumblings of Lewis Hamilton’s new Mercedes deal, Ricciardo’s reappearance demonstrates once again how quickly things can change if there is sufficient drive from the parties involved.

With that in mind, here we assess the current contract situations for four particular drivers, who all face delicate F1 futures – even if these play out over longer periods than the short-term Red Bull has covered with its Ricciardo/Nyck de Vries swap.

Lando Norris 

McLaren's recent upturn in form has got Norris back to contending for podiums, but is he set to stay long-term?

Photo by: Erik Junius

Norris is contracted to McLaren until the end of 2025, so Ricciardo re-entering the Red Bull fold doesn’t have an immediate impact on the Briton’s future. But it could well be a big factor further down the line – especially if his former McLaren team-mate does well enough at AlphaTauri to earn a Red Bull recall, in place of the struggling Sergio Perez. 

Norris is close with Verstappen, considered the Dutchman’s best driver friend in the paddock, and their ease with each other is clear to spot whenever they appear together in front of the media. Red Bull is also a big Norris fan and came close to signing him to the Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri path back in 2018, while he was linked with a move to its main squad in 2022 before signing his latest McLaren deal. 

But if Ricciardo represents an upgrade on Perez without getting close to Verstappen’s position as Red Bull’s top star, it would be logical to expect Norris could threaten given he had the Australian well beaten in tricky McLaren packages in 2021 and 2022. Perhaps that lowers the chance that Red Bull might make an audacious move for Norris. 

Audi’s 2026 arrival is regularly mentioned as a possible alternative Norris destination. Comments such as, “we do have a poor car, and when I say poor, I would say pretty terrible, in the low-speed corners” after Norris finished second at Silverstone stood out. That was one of several pointed, risky, remarks following the MCL60’s tough birth that suggest the 23-year-old might not be as firmly set on seeing out all his days in orange as would have previously been assumed. 

PLUS: How can McLaren keep hold of Norris?

Lewis Hamilton 

Hamilton doesn't have a deal with Mercedes beyond this year, but seems unlikely to be moving on

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

It’s actually the Nyck de Vries element of the Daniel Ricciardo return story that has the biggest implication regarding Lewis Hamilton. Because it serves as a reminder that F1 contracts can be flimsy if one side is keen to exit a deal. And, in any, case Hamilton still doesn’t have one with Mercedes beyond 2023. 

Back in early June, it was thought that negotiations were nearly complete, with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff saying at New York’s Forbes Iconoclast Summit before the Canadian GP that it was a matter of “days, not weeks”. But this has dragged on, with legal wrangling over details such as sponsorship commitments thought to be behind the delay. 

But, if that turns out to be spin covering a more fundamental difference, there’s always the slim chance that Hamilton would consider jumping ship – a shift potentially exacerbated by the reworked W14 proving to be no better than Mercedes’ previous ‘zeropod’ iteration.

Balanced against this is the understanding that Hamilton was united with Wolff in pushing for that change, and he’s too experienced an F1 campaigner to misunderstand that the real result of such a big technical change will only come in 2024. Add in just how closely producer Hamilton has tied Mercedes to Apple’s upcoming F1 film, as was revealed at Silverstone, and it appears even less likely that he would want to be promoting another team by the time of its release. 

Charles Leclerc 

Could Leclerc's frustrations with Ferrari's current flaws cause him to look elsewhere?

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Should the unlikely come to pass and Mercedes and Hamilton part ways, the Black Arrows squad would surely move quickly to line up a move for the grid’s other megastar-in-waiting, Charles Leclerc, given Wolff’s previous comments that he is “a super guy and, for the long-term future, someone you need to always have on your radar”. 

The Monegasque has been unable to hide his frustration at Ferrari’s recent qualifying strategy errors, even while its race tactics have actually improved of late. He is also still clearly lacking confidence in the SF-23 package even with its own recent Red Bull-style upgrades, which has led to overdriving. This resulted in his early-season Melbourne and Miami crashes, plus contributed to his Spain and Austria (sprint) qualifying early exits – as his aggressive style didn’t gel with the Ferrari getting its tyres in the required operating window. 

While there’s currently no spot to be had elsewhere, Leclerc revealed he and Ferrari are “slowly” starting to “speak about it [a new deal post-2024]”, when Autosport asked for an update on his contractual standings in Austria. 

Lance Stroll 

Stroll has been heavily outscored by Alonso at Aston this year, contributing to it slipping behind Mercedes in the constructors' championship

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images

It was at the Red Bull Ring where a whisper was detected regarding the possibility of Aston Martin being a possible alternative home for Charles Leclerc. And here we enter speculation’s realm most deeply, as the green team’s driver line-up looks ever more set with every Fernando Alonso radio message praising team-mate Lance Stroll. 

Yet, Aston is another team with a driver line-up points imbalance – Stroll possessing just 32% of Alonso’s 137 points. This is why Mercedes has edged ahead in second in the constructors’ championship, which has led to the wisdom of keeping Stroll on board being openly questioned in the paddock.  

Aston’s position is that he remains just 24 (although a veteran of 132 F1 starts) and is now being compared to a multiple world champion showing few of the signs of diminished potential that blotted the final years of Sebastian Vettel’s career. And the Stroll doubters often overlook his impressive performances with wrist and toe fractures in 2023’s early rounds.  

With Alonso on a multi-year deal, the focus is heightened on Stroll’s position. Changing that would, however, still require a massive change of heart from his team-owning father, Lawrence. And no matter how seemingly easily big calls can be made at other teams, he will surely want to see the results of his huge infrastructure upgrades before making such a similarly ruthless call to those seen at AlphaTauri this month. 

Aston is likely to want to see the full effect of its infrastructure upgrades before making any firm decisions about the team owner's son

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images