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Antonio Giovinazzi's Italian dream
Maybe the better idea for Ferrari is to look past the obvious star names and go for some low-key in-house talent instead. After all, isn't that what junior squads and driver academies are for? In Ferrari's case, Alfa Romeo is the F1 proving ground for young drivers, where the seats are currently occupied by Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen, with Robert Kubica taking on reserve driver duties. No one is seriously suggesting either of the two veterans as a successor to Vettel in the top team, but what about the younger man?
It would certainly be a gamble. The 26-year-old has only completed a single season in F1 (plus two appearances in 2017 when he stood in at the last minute for an unwell Pascal Wehrlein). After a mixed start to last year's campaign he did finally get to show some improvement, his personal best finish being fifth place in Brazil.
Giovinazzi didn't dazzle in his rookie season in the way that Leclerc did 12 months previously.
It still seems like a bit of a stretch to promote him all the way to the top team so soon. But then again, many of us were saying the same thing about Charles Leclerc's stellar ascent a year ago, when he replaced Raikkonen at Ferrari after a similar one-year apprenticeship at Sauber. The decision seemed unusually impulsive at the time for the normally conservative Scuderia, but it paid off in spades so maybe they now have a greater appetite for living dangerously.
Could history be about to repeat itself? Maybe. But unlike Leclerc, Giovinazzi didn't dazzle in his rookie season in the way that the Monegasque had done 12 months previously. If Ferrari does go for this option then it might be because it's an easy and simple negotiation, together with the desire to finally have an Italian back in the line-up - and not someone who is going to get in the way of Leclerc's own bid for the title. Maybe not the ideal parameters for the selection.
