Gio to stay or go?

So the big talking point now, is who will fill the Alfa Romeo seat as its not been confirmed yet! Could Giovinazzi re-sign? Or will they have a rookie?

Only time will tell… but looking into it theres so many ways they could go with this! As Alfa Romeo came out with something which i’m not sure if many people picked up on… When they signed Bottas I saw a comment by Frédéric Vasseur saying that the Finn will have the responsibility of leading Alfa Romeo forward as he will no longer “be in the shadow” of Lewis Hamilton.

This tells me that Bottas has the number one role, which is fair play to him, he deserves to have a role like that due to his experience etc. BUT if Alfa Romeo was retaining Antonio Giovinazzi surely you would want someone who knows the car and team well to lead it? And as well wouldn’t Giovinazzi want be step up and bring the team forward, theres so many unanswered questions!

Alfa Romeo Team Principal Fred Vasseur, along with his shareholders, is ultimately responsible for who will partner Bottas in 2022. But Vasseur was keeping tight-lipped on which drivers were in the running – although he did confirm that Chinese F2 racer Guanyu Zhou was “on the list”, while adding that reigning Formula E champion Nyck de Vries’ links to Mercedes complicated the Dutch driver’s case.

So who could potentially fill the seat?

Well first up would be their current driver Antonio Giovinazzi. Personally, I don’t see him staying and I would actually be pretty shocked if they announce him. Obviously his talented otherwise he wouldn’t of got the chance to be in F1 but I personally think that he hasn’t really grabbed this opportunity properly, I think he knows his at risk of potentially not racing in F1 next year and normally you would see drivers doing there everything to stay and yeah his got into Q3 in the last two races but that doesn’t really matter if your then not scoring points on the Sunday.

The second option is Guanyu Zhou who is currently 2nd in the Formula Two championship and is also part of the Alpine Academy. Zhou seems like the favourite for the second seat at Alfa Romeo. Zhou has had a very good campaign in F2 this year, with 3 wins to his name, and 5 podiums.

Next up in the long list is Championship leader Oscar Piastri, who is currently sat ahead of Zhou by 15 points… Oscar who is also with the Alpine Academy and managed by Mark Webber, is on fire… 2019 he won the Formula Renault Eurocup and then 2020 winning the F3 Championship with Prema. He is definitley F1 material and it doesn’t seem like he is in contention for the last seat which I think is a shame, but what will he do then? He can’t do another year in F2 as he has too many points on his super licence, so maybe the route of going down the test & reserve driver…