Why F1 is Becoming More Like Football 🏎
Ft. Fernando Alonso aka the master of chaos + What cake do you buy the greatest athlete of all time? 🎂
Welcome to Athletic Interest.
This week we are going to try and explain the utter chaos that is the Formula 1 driver’s market and why it looks like F1 drivers are watching too much football.
The summer break is meant to be a moment of calm in the middle of a busy F1 calendar. For fourteen consecutive days, teams are prohibited from any production, design, or testing and drivers usually spend the time relaxing on Caribbean islands. But this year, Fernando Alonso decided to use his holiday to unleash chaos.
It all began when Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement from F1 last Thursday. This left a free seat at Aston Martin for the 2023 season. While speculation over his successor mounted, Fernando Alonso agreed to a secret deal with Aston Martin to take the seat.
This revelation shocked Alonso’s current team Alpine, who were convinced that Alonso was days away from agreeing to an extension.
In fact, Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer was under the impression that the only thing preventing Alonso from signing a new contract was the fact that he was on a boat in Greece with a bad mobile signal.
In reality, Alonso was having fun in Spain…with a perfect internet connection.
This revelation completely ruined Alpine’s master plan. They expected Alonso to continue for another year before promoting promising reserve driver Oscar Piastri in 2024.
With the seat suddenly available, Alpine decided to promote Piastra one year early.
That is when things went from bad to worse…
Instead of being elated that he had achieved his dream of becoming an F1 driver, Oscar Piastri instead took to Twitter to deny any agreement with Alpine.
The tweet instantly took off, with accounts across the Twittersphere releasing their own take on the situation.
So, what exactly is going on here?
Well, Piastri was reportedly frustrated with waiting around for Alpine to promote him that he started discussions with other teams hoping to get a race seat there instead. Mclaren supposedly agreed to a preliminary deal with the Australian, leading him to shoot down the Alpine post on Twitter.
To be fair to Alpine, they were convinced that Piastri had a clause in his contract FORCING him to accept any offer of a race seat. Piastri claims that the clause expired on the 31st of July.
As insane as this whole situation may seem, it did make us wonder about how Formula 1 is changing before our eyes.
In many ways, it is starting to seem more like a football transfer market, and this could alter the way fans interact with F1 forever.
Let us explain…
The career of an F1 driver is similar to that of a professional footballer. They enter the youth programme of a big team to develop their skills. When they progress far enough, the team will either loan them somewhere else for experience or promote them to a seat.
Should another team want to steal a driver they need to either negotiate a buyout fee with the current team (basically a transfer fee) or wait for the driver to become a free agent at the end of their contract.
These negotiations happen every year, and yet we rarely hear about them. In contrast, billions of tweets happen during every football transfer market and journalists like Fabrizio Romano have built lucrative careers from breaking transfer news before anyone else.
A major reason for the lack of rumour and controversy in the F1 driver’s market is the fact that there are only 20 seats available. Whenever one becomes free it is often snapped up instantly.
But, with interest in F1 growing, it is only natural that people will become more curious about the inner workings of the sport and the fate of their favourite drivers.
The types of drivers in the talent pool will also help fuel speculation. For many years, F1 had a habit of trading older drivers between teams, leaving no space for fresh talent (think Kimi Räikkönen.) With younger drivers like Lando Norris and George Russell proving that trust in youth can pay off, there is a feeling that more teams will consider trading older or out-of-form stars for new youth prospects.
This explains why Piastri was so quick to burn his bridges with Alpine. He is one of the most promising young drivers on the grid and caught the interest of Mclaren who are reportedly considering replacing out-of-form Daniel Ricciardo at the end of this season.
For the first time in F1 history, teams are facing competition for their best talent and older drivers are facing competition for their seats.
In response, you can expect far more coverage of transfer rumours, speculation, and exclusives from journalists within the F1 eco-system.
Interestingly, this week the world of football transfers had a similar Piastri-style incident….
Sports Business Bites 🍎
👟 Talking of Mclaren and innovative deals, the carmaker/F1 team has just announced a collaboration with shoe label Athletic Propulsion Labs for a limited-edition line of running shoes.
The high-tech shoes, called HySpeed, will be available in five colors and are infused with design and aerodynamic elements from McLaren. This includes a carbon fiber plate and nitrogen-infused cushioning.
Anyone looking to buy a pair will need to hand over a whopping $450, with the shoes set to be sold by luxury shops across the U.S. and Asia.
If you are wondering why Mclaren has started making shoes, the Chief Marketing Director claims it is a way for the company to ‘stay culturally relevant.’ We will have to try the shoes before we can respond to that claim.
🏈 Lewis Hamilton is officially a part owner of the Denver Broncos NFL team. The seven-time world champion has joined up with the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group, which recently acquired the Broncos for around US$4.65 billion.
While it is not clear how much Hamilton invested to join the group, he previously pledged $13 million to a failed bid to buy Chelsea Football club.
Hamilton can now consider himself a part owner of the Broncos alongside Walmart heir Rob Walton and former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. (what a strange trio.)
🐐 How do you celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest athletes of all time? Well, Tampa Bay’s Leonard Fournette decided that the best way to celebrate his legendary teammate Tom Brady’s 45th birthday was to have a custom goat cake made.
The super realistic cake was sculpted from fondant and buttercream and came with a cheeky ‘Happy 100th Birthday’ sign for good measure.
While we are sure that Brady appreciated the effort, it is unlikely that he decided to have a slice. The NFL legend follows a strict diet that rarely includes sugar.
Either way, Happy Birthday Tom Brady.