F1 Fanatic

Interesting topic, but when would you see these guys winning the title? Vettel and Hamilton could easily be around another 7 or 8 seasons each. And Alonso and Raikkonen still are putting in excellent performances. They haven’t had a top car to show what they can do but certainly I find it hard to imagine Hulkenberg or Perez or Grosjean or anyone else for that matter beating any of the big three drivers over the course of a season with the level of performance they are showing at the minute. I suppose when Alonso’s contract runs out is the big chance for one of those guys to get a top seat without an undisputed number one driver. Although if Vettel goes to Ferrari then Red Bull could potentially be an attractive proposition.

Anyway I would agree Hulkenberg has the best shot of the new drivers on the grid, but on the other hand I could quite easily foresee a situation where there are no new champions for another 4 or 5 years at least. And who knows what sort of outstanding new drivers will come into the sport in the meantime, a new Vettel or Hamilton?

@debaser91 I’m not entirely certain. I think it will depend on when the likes of Button, Alonso, Raikkonen and Webber retire. They will only have 8 years left in them max, less in Webber’s case, and who will come in and replace them. If we have a situation like we got with McLaren where they picked Perez over Kobayashi (which I still believe is not the best driver they could have gone for) then it may take longer for a driver like Hulkenberg or the next Vettel/Hamilton to emerge to the front. Speaking of which, whilst those two are about and have many years left in them it might take 10 years before we get another new champion!

@craig-o He’s a Belgian that won the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup title last year and is one of the favourites for the 3.5 title this year (alongside da Costa, of course).

Grosjean, Hulkenberg, Perez. I would really like to see Grosjean win a WDC

@Enigma Ah! Well hopefully he can take the fight to da Costa then this season, rather than FR3.5 being an all da Costa show!

Nico Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas, Robin Frijns, Antonio Felix da Costa, and Stoffel Vandoorne all have good chances of being WDC sometime in the future.

However, IMO Rosberg and even Hulkenberg are already too old. Therefore, my three picks, as I have to narrow it down, are Sergio Perez, Robin Frijns, and Antonio Felix da Costa.

Oh BTW, I’m unpleasantly surprised that no one has mentioned Frijns yet!

I think that with the strength of the field right now it’s very hard to say.

Vettel and Hmailton only have a few years between them, Alonso and Button are now into their thirties as is Raikkonen.

So there’s certainly scope for Hamilton and Vettel being around still in 8- years! Vettel seems almost certain to join Ferrari once Alonso leaves/retires and there’s no doubt that Mercedes have brought Hamilton in to be their man to bring them the success that they are investing in with all the top technical talent now there/due to join.

I’d certainly think that Hulkenberg will eventually be up there…other than that Bottas is very highly rated so will be good to the likes of him and Perez develop over the next few seasons.

Main thing to notice though is how lucky we are..I first started watching F1 in th mid 90s and then you Had Schumacher/Hill/Villenueve/Hakkinen. Other than that there were not a lot of great drivers about! In the early 2000′s Schumacher was way on his own while Raikkonen & Alonso came in and learnt their trade.

At the moment we have world champions:

Vettel
Alonso
Hamilton
Button
Raikkonen

Multi winners:

Massa
Webber

One time winners:

Rosberg
Maldonado

so plenty of drivers who have achieved success of some kind plus young drivers who look to have lots of potential: Perez/Hulkenberg/Bottas/Maldonado etc