Formula 1: How Alpine’s latest big move could hurt Mercedes

Alpine’s somewhat surprising signing of Esteban Ocon through the 2024 Formula 1 season could be quite massive for Mercedes.

Earlier this week, Alpine announced that they have signed Esteban Ocon to a massive contract extension that runs through the 2024 Formula 1 season, news that came as somewhat of a surprise to some just six races into the 2021 season.

The 2021 season is Ocon’s second season with the team, as he began competing there last year when they were still known as Renault following a year off in 2019 that came after he was released by Racing Point/Force India.

Now the 24-year-old Frenchman, who competes alongside two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, is under contract for another three years beyond the conclusion of the current 23-race campaign.

And this has a direct impact on Mercedes and the key decision that they may need to make in the coming months — possibly even weeks or days.

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Ocon is a former Mercedes junior driver who is still managed by the team. Despite the fact that he officially left the organization after 2019 to sign with Renault, he was still seen as a possible driver of a Mercedes car in the 2022 season. Team principal and CEO Toto Wolff admitted that before the 2021 season began.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are under contract through the end of the 2021 season. Hamilton re-signing seems like a decent bet, but things are much less clear with Bottas, who is driving for the team on a fifth consecutive one-year deal.

It was believed throughout the summer of 2019 that Ocon could be called upon as Bottas’s replacement for the 2020 season, but Bottas ended up re-signing.

Things were going smoothly at Mercedes at the time, and they were the clear-cut championship favorites, so they simply needed a solid number two driver who could put up good points while Hamilton did what he needed to do to win the world championship. Bottas fulfilled that role quite well.

Things have changed now.

Not only is Hamilton being challenged — led, actually — in the world championship battle by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but Red Bull’s second driver, Sergio Perez, sits three places ahead of Bottas in the driver standings, giving Red Bull the edge in the constructor championship battle for the first time since 2013, before the V6 turbo hybrid era began.

So not only does “solid second driver” no longer cut it, but Bottas hasn’t even been that “solid second driver” so far in 2021, with just three point-scoring finishes this year.

And now for Mercedes, it may be too late to make an effective “changing of the guard”.

The 24-year-old Ocon is off the table until at least 2025. 21-year-old Lando Norris, another Mercedes candidate, recently signed a multi-year extension with McLaren as well.

The 23-year-old Verstappen had already been under contract with Red Bull through 2023, and there is no reason to expect that to change via the activation of any performance clauses, given the strides make by the Milton Keynes-based team so far in 2021. And of course, 23-year-old Charles Leclerc is already under contract with Ferrari through 2024.

Short-term, Mercedes still may be in a decent spot. If they do move on from Bottas after 2021, which appears overwhelmingly likely, they have George Russell upon whom they can call to replace him.

The Mercedes junior driver is in the third and final year of his current deal with Williams, and he is keen to move up to competitive machinery as soon as possible.

He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt last year, substituting for Hamilton in the Sakhir Grand Prix at Bahrain International Circuit following Hamilton’s positive test for COVID-19, that he is up for it as well.

But is all really well and good with Hamilton and Russell in the Silver Arrows in 2022?

Hamilton isn’t going to be around forever.

At 36 years old, he is already the third oldest driver on the grid (he was actually the second oldest behind Kimi Raikkonen, Formula 1’s all-time most experienced driver, before Alonso un-retired).

While he and the team have spoken about a new deal for 2022, even that is far from a guarantee; just look at everything that happened throughout the entire 2020 season and 2020-2021 offseason before they finally came to an agreement.

With Mercedes no longer the dominant force they were throughout the first seven years of the V6 turbo hybrid era and with massive new rules and regulations slated to take effect in 2022, stability is going to be key.

Alpine, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari already have that with established young talent leading the way.

Mercedes? Not so much, and their replacement pool for when Hamilton eventually hangs up his helmet has shrunk drastically in the last few weeks alone.