7 Craziest Mid-Season F1 Driver Swaps

seven crazy mid-season f1 driver transfers there's been quite a bit of chatter on the rumor mill lately about mr valtteri bottas losing his seat to george russell at mercedes and whether that driver swap may even happen before the end of the season now i'm more than happy to stick my neck on the line here and say there is no way mercedes would choose to remove bot ass during this season but crazier things have happened hence this video that we've so kindly made for your entertainment here are seven of the biggest mid-season driver transfers moreno out schumacher in benetton 1991. michael schumacher joined f1 as a stand-in for jordan driver bertrand gashow who'd been arrested for pepper spraying a london taxi driver in self-defense yes that is an actual true story michael only did one race for them and he didn't even finish the race however his qualifying pace was enough to make him f1's hottest property quickly eddie jordan signed a contract with him to get him to stay at jordan but the cunning benetton boss flavio briatori was already sniffing around himself flavio also signed a deal to get michael in his car from the next race contracts became complicated with the jordan contract being altered to say that michael would sign a driver agreement that driver agreement became a straight swap with benetton's roberto moreno going to jordan and michael schumacher taking the vacant benetton seat palmer out signs in renault 2017. at the end of the 2017 season carlos science was signed by renault to replace julian palmer who'd been struggling a lot in his second season in f1 jolien had one points finish to his name and his teammate nico hulkenberg was fighting at the top of the midfield every race it became obvious that julian would lose his seat and just before the singapore gp renault announced that palmer was out and carlos signs would join the team in 2018. however renault was impatient just weeks after announcing carlos's new contract they decided to put signs in the car from the 2017 u.s grand prix he qualified in the top 10 and scored points in his very first race seems like a win to me truly out vilnius renault 2004 jano trill's 2004 season is famous for two things his only f1 victory at monaco and being sacked by renault at the end of the year after having a huge falling out with flavio briatori the start of the year was brilliant he was in his third season with the team and looked to earn himself a fourth but when he lost the podium to rubens baroquello on the last lap of the french grand prix the team was not happy gradually the relationship got worse and so did yano's results he was no longer scoring points and with three races to go he was replaced by 1997 champion jacques vilner who was on the sidelines for 2004. it worked out alright for yano though as he was able to go to his new team two races early at toyota montoya out dela rosa inn mclaren 2006. when pablo montoya was highly sought after in f1 in the early 2000s he was the exciting colombian who was taking the fight to the domineering michael schumacher and ferrari from his very first few races he was so compelling that the famously boring ron dennis even got caught up in the buzz and in 2003 he signed montoya to mclaren for a 2005 start date deals for drivers are rarely done so early but unfortunately for the two parties it didn't go very well montoya found the mclaren very unpredictable to drive and for most of the season he couldn't get on kimi raikkonen's level he did win the odd race later in the year but kimi was fighting for the championship the following year montoya announced midway through the season that he would be driving in nascar in 2007 rather than f1 he was promptly sacked from mclaren who thought there was no point in paying for a driver who didn't want to be there they brought in reserve driver pedro dela rosa who had performed well as a stand-in the year before delarosa saw out the season for mclaren and the following season some kid called lewis hamilton came up from gp2 to drive for them never heard of him we now enter the red bull part of the video because well apparently it's a normal thing for a driver to not finish a season with them liatsy in out clean in out 2005. this was red bull's weird innovative three driver strategy in out in out shake it all about approach which they decided would be a good idea for their very first ever season in f1 david coulthard was the proven race winner who had come from mclaren so he was made number one driver the number two role was split between vit antonio liutzi and christian clean seriously the strangest game of musical chairs we've ever heard of leotze was a red bull driver who had performed very well in formula 3000 and earned an f1 shot and cleon had been driving for the team the year before when it was jaguar both drivers switched seats for certain races throughout the 2005 season but the idea of swapping drivers every other race didn't really catch on caviar out for stepping in 2016. one of the most famous driver swaps of recent years was when max verstappen was promoted to the red bull senior team at only 18 years old and after only one full season in f1 after four races of 2016 daniel kfier was not performing up to scratch he managed a podium at the chinese grand prix which was great but his teammate daniel ricardo had been leading before a puncture for the spanish grand prix great was demoted to toro rosso and max was promoted to the red bull the move was vindicated straight away when max won that race and became the youngest ever race winner in f1 history gasly out albanin 2019. if you want pure drive to survive drama you can't look any further than pierre gasly being demoted to torrosso midway through the 2019 season pierre had failed to match max's pace all year and for red bull it just wasn't good enough max won two races in the first half of the year and took a pole position pierre's best result was one fourth place the pressure mounted and over the summer break they brought in alex alban who'd had some stellar races for toro rosso he fought for a podium in the wet legitimately at hockenheim and earned a shot with the senior team in his very first season alban did do better than gasly for the most part in 2019 and got close to a podium in 2020 though alvin stape couldn't bring the fight to max and was demoted all the way to reserve driver status gasly on the other hand won with alfortari in 2020 the absolute monza scenes and is now the team leader there but any avenue to the senior team looks pretty much off the cards there you have it some crazy driver swaps mid-season which one surprised you the most could bot ass be added to this list in the near future let us know in the comment section below you

Channel: WTF1

Views: 587,809

Keywords: wtf1, f1, grand prix, hamilton, vettel, ferrari, mercedes, highlights, formula 1, verstappen, red bull, f1 2020, albon, norris, leclerc, russell, formula one, gasly, lando, michael schumacher, carlos sainz, max verstappen

Id: Hyeyo-HR8mA

Length: 6min 53sec (413 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 24 2021