Lotus F1 Should Hurry To Replace Romain Grosjean

Even though Renault’s takeover of Lotus is moving at a very slow pace, the two of them should also focus on possible candidates for next year’s empty seat.

Both F1 fans as well as teams were shocked to hear Grosjean depart Lotus in favor of Haas racing. It even came as a shock to Lotus deputy team principal Federico Gastaldi who was recently quoted as saying that for them, the French driver’s departure came as a surprise and that they’re not even ready to start searching for a replacement.

While it’s perfectly understandable that the team is split right now having to focus between the Renault takeover and the remaining races of the 2015 F1 campaign, waiting too long to sign a replacement for Grosjean is risky on multiple levels.

The most obvious problem would be that candidates could simply withdraw their names from the hat for whatever reason, and while there may not be any slam dunks in terms of who these free agent F1 drivers are right now, there are still some that are young and sufficiently experienced.

Another issue is that you want to get a driver and help him get to know the team and the car for next year as soon as you can draw it up. And assuming Renault wouldn’t have to start from scratch (since they would own Lotus’ designs), the drivers should start working with their engineers as soon as possible.

Lotus reserve driver Jolyon Palmer is certainly worth considering, since he’s already been with the team for a while now, but looking at the free agent landscape, there are two more experienced drivers that Lotus and/or Renault should talk to.

Coincidentally, both of them are similar in age, have performed similarly in the past (in F1 as well as other motor sports) and have proven to be sufficiently talented on several occasions – I am talking about former full-time McLaren-Mercedes driver Kevin Magnussen and former Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne.

While Vergne is 25 and Magnussen is 23, they both competed in British Formula 3, Formula Renault 2.0, Formula Renault 3.5 and of course Formula One. It just so happens that their point totals are incredibly similar too, basically in every motor sport they share.

In F1, Vergne’s biggest tally was 22 pts in 2014, while Magnussen finished the same year with 55 pts, though only two places above the Frenchman in the drivers championship. Besides, the Danish driver clearly had the better car.

Vergne on the other hand is more experienced with three total F1 seasons under his belt (5 if you count working as a test driver), and on top of that, he’s French! That should go over really well with Renault management.

Either one of these two drivers would help solidify Renault in 2016 alongside Pastor Maldonado.

Note: Both Magnussen and Vergne currently have F1 seats (McLaren & Ferrari respectively) though only as reserve drivers.