Formula 1’s Expendable Youth: Parallels with a Classic Game

Gamers of a certain era will remember the tactical shoot ’em up game, Cannon Fodder, from the 90s. In this game, you led a squad of soldiers through perilous missions, with a limited pool of expendable troops at your disposal. Fast forward to today’s Formula 1 scene, and it seems there are some striking similarities.

The Expendability Factor in Formula 1

Just a handful of races after Liam Lawson was ousted from Red Bull, Jack Doohan has found himself back on the bench at Alpine. This season, much like Cannon Fodder, it seems that in Formula 1, being quick or wealthy enough is often not enough to secure a permanent spot.

History is littered with examples of talented drivers who have failed to make the most of their opportunities when they reached the big time. Stephen South, for instance, impressed in F2 back in 1978 but faltered when given his chance at McLaren.

Many other drivers have faced a similar fate, with not being quick or wealthy enough usually being the cause. However, there are exceptions like Irish maverick Tommy Byrne, whose distinctive character led to him being overlooked in the F1 paddock.

Drivers at a Politically Tense Crossroads

Often, these drivers have arrived at a difficult, politically tense inflection point in a team’s existence. South, for example, was part of McLaren during a period when title sponsor Marlboro was growing tired of the team’s dismal performance and engineering a shotgun marriage with Project Four.

Even Prost, then a rookie, became a political football in such situations. Today, we see similar parallels at Alpine, which has been in a state of constant reboot since Renault reacquired the team at the end of 2016.

The Fate of Jack Doohan

Since Alpine added Franco Colapinto to its roster back in January, the executive knives have been out for Doohan. His progress through the first six rounds of 2025 hasn’t helped his case, and recently had to restrict comments on its social media feeds due to the toxic invective aimed at Doohan from Latin America.

The tipping point for Doohan came in Japan, after he left the DRS flap open into Turn 1 during practice and his car picked up substantial damage. Alpine quickly flagged the incident as driver error, but Doohan felt he had been thrown under the bus.

The Rise of Franco Colapinto

Colapinto, on the other hand, has done enough in nine grands prix for Williams to demonstrate that he is not slow, making him a relatively low-risk replacement for Doohan. Briatore is also excited about the potential to unlock sponsorship deals in South America, where Colapinto’s profile is huge.

Enshrining Colapinto’s promotion as a five-race “assessment” is a typically brazen Flavio move, giving himself a get-out clause should either Colapinto’s performance or the bags of LatAm cash not match expectations (or, indeed, both).

The Challenges Facing Young Drivers in Formula 1

If we were to express the reasons for young drivers getting so little time to make an impression in terms of a Venn diagram, commerce would undoubtedly be one of the sets. F1 is more global than ever before thanks to America finally getting onboard, teams are now enshrined as franchises heading towards billion-dollar values, but no less cash-hungry for that.

As a consequence, driver image is a key pillar of commercial success and one seen as a loser brand has negative effects on that value. Another factor is the sheer difficulty of the current generation of ground-effect cars, all the more so as this ruleset reaches maturity and the machines have become edgier as they reach their limits.

To some extent you can either drive them or you can’t – even Lewis Hamilton has had his problems. With cost controls, opportunities to test have grown fewer and young drivers get less seat time than they did in previous decades. The rookie test provisions and ‘Testing of Previous Cars’ protocols only partially offset this.

Another major set in our Venn diagram is an old truism of motor racing: perception is all in Formula 1. Oliver Bearman, another rookie who has had an up-and-down 2025 season so far, hasn’t been subjected to anywhere near the level of threat Doohan or Lawson encountered.

This is partially a factor of environment, since Ayao Komatsu runs a ship that’s happy as well as professional. But also one of perception: Bearman’s debut as a substitute for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari in Saudi Arabia last year was stellar, and the power of its afterglow ensured that two somewhat less spectacular outings for Haas later in the year, including a messy affair in Sao Paulo, have been all but struck from the record.

If we were to eliminate Jeddah from the sample set, the optics would be less positive. There are always plenty more drivers coming through the junior ladder, and the teams are scrambling to sign them up younger than ever – Alpine, Red Bull, and McLaren have karters on their books. It’s a game in which a degree of expendability is tolerated, provided there is a funnel of personnel ready to take to the field of combat.

A lot like Cannon Fodder, in fact.