It’s been reported by Auto Motor und Sport (AMuS) that AlphaTauri could confirm their driver line-up for 2024 this weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix, where at least one driver is set to be announced.
According to AMuS, AlphaTauri are going to confirm at Suzuka that Yuki Tsunoda will continue with the team for a fourth season, whilst it’s expected that Daniel Ricciardo will continue alongside him.
Tsunoda has shown considerable improvement this season and partly led to the dropping of Nyck de Vries after the British Grand Prix, as the Dutch driver couldn’t match the Japanese star’s performances.
The 23-year-old is so far the team’s highest points scorer, with three points to his name after 15 races.
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He has endured his fair share of bad luck this year, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix where he failed to start the race following a technical failure on the warm-up lap.
Having previously been described as immature and reckless, Tsunoda has made huge strides this campaign towards becoming a more consistent driver, something which has clearly played a part in him being retained for 2024.
Red Bull development driver Ricciardo is also reportedly set to remain with AlphaTauri next season, having been chosen as De Vries’ replacement from this season’s Hungarian Grand Prix onwards.
Ricciardo has made an instant positive contribution to the team, who he’s set to race for full-time in 2024.
It means that despite his heroics at the Singapore Grand Prix, Liam Lawson is set to miss out on one of the Red Bull-owned seats yet again.
Despite having performed brilliantly since filling in for the injured Ricciardo, Red Bull are supposedly keeping the Kiwi as their reserve driver next season.
Lawson not only progressed to Q3 last weekend in Singapore, he went onto finish ninth at the Marina Bay Circuit, securing a top-10 finish on just his third F1 race start.
His only chance of featuring on the 2024 grid is if Red Bull can negotiate a loan deal with Williams, as the future of Logan Sargeant is still unknown.
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The general expectation is that Sargeant will be retained for a second campaign, although ex-F1 driver Karun Chandhok believes the Grove-based team have to consider Red Bull’s reserve driver.
“You’ve got to have the conversation, haven’t you?” Chandhok said on Sky Sports F1. “Because, you know, Albon’s out-qualified Sargeant on every occasion, he has had scored all the points so far for Williams.
“If you are Williams, you should be shopping around and Liam Lawson has put himself on the market in a very good way.”