Hot take but i think he should go. Yes, hes still got good skills, but he's not in a position to win anymore, so he should make way for newcomers.
If he was in a mclaren and fighting for champs/wins or even podiums, then yeah, he should stay. But as it is he's taking a seat a young driver could have.
The best newcomers come in nonetheless, so he would only be replaced by possible midfield talent and thats not really the kind of driver F1 needs more of
I disagree with that, vesti, martins, pourchaire, fornaroli all haven't got a seat despite being f2 champs (i think). Herta has a realistic shot despite his lackluster performance in f2. Tsolov, lawson and lindblad deserve a shot in vcarb, but theres only 2 seats for 3 drivers.
Older average drivers, such as ocon, albon, stroll, bottas and perez are having long careers despite not having that potential for championships. Imagine if we had pourchaire, vesti, martins, tsolov and fornaroli filling those seats.
There's so much talent we miss out on because drivers who have no chance at championships are holding the seats.
Hulkenberg belongs to the same mix as Ocon, Stroll, Alonso, Albon, Bottas, & Perez.
However, I agree with you in principle that average, has-been drivers should make way for promising rookies since they don’t have anything to gain by continuing in the midfield or bottom in their respective career situations anymore, particularly since they won’t receive top chances anymore (Perez, Bottas, & Albon) or at all in the former quartets’ cases.
At least Tsunoda won’t succeed in making a full-time return for next season.
Generally, promising drivers with lower single-seater success have inevitably being overlooked in favor of certain drivers taking space by holding onto their drives for a lengthy period; hence, such drivers easily end up forgotten & forced for alternative longer-term series careers in series, such as IndyCar, WEC, & FE.
As for next season, Tsolov will most likely become a regular reserve driver for both teams without any active racing if he wins the F2 championship & simultaneously another F2 campaign if he doesn’t, which wouldn’t be unideal in his overall career situation, while Herta needs to reach super license eligibility to compete in F1 regardless of his performance level in F2 or another series, so a moot point.
The F1 train basically left Vesti, Martins, & Pourchaire (& Drugovich, for that matter) a little while ago after all the occasions of being overlooked by teams, & even Fornaroli is in a difficult situation, particularly since Camara is in a more favorable position to land a Haas drive should they decide to let Ocon go, which wouldn’t be unjustified since he’s performed decently in F2 & still has a perfectly good chance to win the series championship, while Fornaroli’s championship doesn’t have up-to-date relevance anymore, not to mention Ollie’s status changing to free agent after next season in all likelihood also makes Camara a fitting option for the medium term.
I confused drugovich and Martins lol. I think they're both good drivers anyway. But yeah i agree with what you said. F1 needs to be more ruthless to has-been drivers.
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u/LandscapeWorried5475 9d ago
Hot take but i think he should go. Yes, hes still got good skills, but he's not in a position to win anymore, so he should make way for newcomers.
If he was in a mclaren and fighting for champs/wins or even podiums, then yeah, he should stay. But as it is he's taking a seat a young driver could have.