Vettel has big shoes to fill next season, says Brawn
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel now has big shoes to fill next season after Sergio Perez won Sunday's Sakhir Grand Prix for Racing Point, Formula One's motorsport managing director Ross Brawn said on Monday.
The 33-year-old German is joining from Ferrari, where he has been out of sorts of late, to what will be the Aston Martin team in 2021 in a move that has pushed onform Mexican Perez out the door.
Perez, three years younger and in the form of his life, is fourth in the drivers' standings after his first F1 win. He has no seat lined up for next year, however.
Brawn, in a column on the formula1.com website, repeated his view that it will be a `tragedy' if Perez is not racing next season.
“The team must be thinking about the decisions they have made, losing him when he's driving so well,” the Briton said.
Vettel won world titles with Red Bull from 2010-13 and has 53 wins to his credit.
Racing Point's other driver is Lance Stroll, son of the Canadian billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll and in no danger of losing his seat.
BOTTAS ON BORROWED TIME AT MERCEDES
Valtteri Bottas looks increasingly on borrowed time at Mercedes after George Russell showed the Formula One world champions just how good he can be.
Russell, 22, was drafted in as a late replacement for Lewis Hamilton at Sunday's Sakhir Grand Prix when the seven-times champion tested positive for COVID-19, but at times it looked like the older Briton was at the wheel.
Apart from qualifying, when Bottas took pole by a whisker, Russell had the measure of the Finn and could have won but for a team error and misfortune.
“We learned that George Russell is somebody to count on in the future,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said. “He has all the potential and all the ingredients that a future star needs.”
Russell, the 2018 Formula Two champion, has a long-term contract with Mercedes and has been learning the ropes at struggling Williams. The future looks bright for him.
Less so for Bottas, who after being regularly beaten by one British driver, now has to worry about another taking his seat when his contract runs out at the end of 2021.
“If you don't know things, I might have looked like a ... fool you know,” said the Finn of an afternoon that saw him finish eighth and one place ahead of Russell.
“It will be very easy for people to say that a new guy comes in and beats the guy who's been in the team for a few years.”
“But the people who know, they know how is the performance and how the end result could have been,” said Bottas, who has been at Mercedes since 2017.
Bottas has had plenty of misfortune — former racer Martin Brundle quipped on Sunday that if the Finn did not have bad luck he'd have no luck at all — and has won only twice this year, compared to Hamilton's 11.