I know what you mean by the next great. As most have pointed out none of them are really greats as it’s current F1 but with that said here are my top 3:
1) As much as I don’t want to say it – Vettel 4 championships in a row is quite something, although I still think the car had all to play for very much like it was last season for Hamilton. You can argue webber should have got close to him but the reality is Webber did not have the same car and had probably lost the love for F1.
2) Out of drivers who have the potential I’d say there are about 3. Max Verstappen is first out of all of them. He has a certain spark in his driving. Hulkenburg is another strong potential but with the field so car performance orientated it’s shot him in the foot and I think it’s a great move for him to look into WEC as that’s where the racing is at in my opinion. Jolyon Palmer, test driver for Lotus showed in the Chinese GP weekend and had strong pace and maturity considering he did not know the track he was less than a second I think it was, against Maldonado who was in the top 10 in that practice session.
3) As much as I hate to say this – The stupid petty drama between Hamilton and Rosberg will go in the history books titled under “When F1 was crap, and Drivers Childish” All this whining on the radio and in interviews that does my head in that everyone seems to love. Man up and drive the pair of them! “My seat is getting really hot”, and all this nonsense and driver assisting stuff. It’s not action.
Obviously this became a short rant, however with all this i think the next greats are in WEC in my opinion. There is racing there and not petty talking. If F1 really wants to grab my attention like it once did, then it needs get rid of DRS, it’s not a technological advance in cars and makes for boring overtakes, I think GP2 shows that DRS is not needed for good racing. They also need to sort money thing out and get rid of Bernie as he’s killing the sport now.
I also forgot Bottas who has amazing potential and just needs to get that Williams behind him again to show he can compete for podiums again.