What Felipe Drugovich’s Formula E move says about the path to F1

Of the previous six Formula 2 champions, only a single one of them won more times in their championship-winning season than Felipe Drugovich did in 2022.

That one was 2021 champion Oscar Piastri and while the Australian is leading the F1 2025 title charge, Drugovich has been lost in an Aston Martin purgatory that finally looks to be coming to an end.

Felipe Drugovich: Stuck in F1 purgatory

On the face of it, Drugovich has a lot going for him as an F1 candidate. He’s an F2 title winner, which whilst not always being a guaranteed entry into F1 is better to have than to not, comes from a part of the world where teams are eager to lay down marketing routes and has plenty of laps under his belt having been Aston’s reserve driver since 2023.

The 2025 season has seen Drugovich take part in FP1 at Bahrain and Hungary and some testing laps following the British Grand Prix but when Formula 1’s silly season came round, his name was nowhere to be seen.

It is not obvious why. He is an F2 winner, like Piastri, George Russell and Charles Leclerc were before him. He is Brazilian meaning he can tap into that lucrative market that Alpine has attempted to pay its way into with Franco Colapinto and, with seven FP1 sessions and a pre-season test, he is far more experienced than the likes of Jack Doohan was before he got his break.

So why, then, has this talented young driver disappeared into the background of the F1 paddock?

The first reason to look at is his choice of team. Aston were not the only ones interested in the Brazilian after his F2 exploits but they were the one that offered the least clear route to a full-time seat. In Fernando Alonso, they have their superstar who is still performing well into his 40s and in Lance Stroll they have the owner’s son who was never realistically going to step aside.

But a blocked path is not necessarily the end of an F1 career. Colapinto has demonstrated it as did Piastri when he left Alpine for McLaren, opportunities can arise elsewhere.

The plight of Drugovich will be a stark warning for those coming through the F2 system – no longer is success in that series a guarantee of a Formula 1 future.

Drugovich is joined by Theo Pourchaire in the F2 champion cast-off pile. The latter was presumed the successor to the Sauber seat for this season but the Swiss team turned their nose up, allowing him to move to IndyCar and make a future for himself there.

For Drugovich, he was much more hesitant to give up the F1 dream. In an interview with The Race, he said he preferred not to spend too much time away from the F1 paddock, maintaining he needs to be ready to jump on an opportunity should it present itself.

It is a fair belief. Nyck de Vries got his opportunity not because he was necessarily the best option but because he was in the paddock at Monza and had already had a seat fit when Alex Albon was diagnosed with appendicitis.

That opportunity for Drugovich almost presented itself in 2023 when Lance Stroll missed pre-season following a bike crash. Had the Canadian’s recovery been a few days longer, Drugovich would have got his first start and considering Alonso made it to the podium in that race, the Brazilian certainly had the car to impress that day and put himself on the radar.

Alas, that did not happen and now he is reportedly on the verge of agreeing a Formula E deal with Andretti that will see him race for them full time in 2025-26, effectively ending any lingering hope of an F1 deal.

That is undoubtedly a sliding door moment in the career of Drugovich but his inability to get onto the F1 grid shows an increasing trend of F2 champions.

Before Gabriel Bortoleto joined Sauber, just one champion from 2019 to 2023 was on the F1 grid – Piastri, who many deem a generational talent. Others had their opportunities, De Vries being one, Mick Schumacher the other but in more recent years, Formula 1 teams have been increasingly reluctant to select drivers based on their F2 success alone.

There is, of course, context to this sudden lack of seats. For starters, drivers are competing for longer. Alonso, who is in the way of someone like Drugovich and a race seat, is 44. Lewis Hamilton turned 40 earlier this year.

F1 is less physical than it was decades ago, drivers are protected in a metal cocoon meaning bumps and bangs that may have pushed a driver into retirement many moons ago are now able to be walked off.

Even away from the cream of the crop, teams prefer the devil they know. In 2023, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu combined for 16 points but both returned in 2024. At Haas, Kevin Magnussen scored three points all year but he too survived.

There is also the Max Verstappen effect. Joining at the age of 17, the Dutchman proved that if you are good enough, you are old enough, meaning teams do not feel the need to see a driver prove himself in the lower series before being given an F1 shot – just look at Kimi Antonelli.

The Italian only graduated from karting in 2021 and his CV includes a FRECA championship and one season in F2 but he has been propelled into the Mercedes seat.

Granted, Lewis Hamilton’s move brought the timeline forward but Toto Wolff could have filled the gap with a driver like Carlos Sainz and allowed Antonelli to hone his craft more.

New Sauber signing Bortoleto has broken the trend, becoming the first F2 champion since Piastri to be given a seat and the first since George Russell to go straight from an F2 title to an F1 seat but the Brazilian was pretty low down on Sauber’s priority list. Only confirmed in November once other options such as Sainz had been exhausted.

F1 has always been an expensive business but increasingly, the size of your sponsorship is just as important as your skill behind the wheel.

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Colapinto was sixth in his first full season of F2 when he got the Williams call-up and while impressing early on, he had some notable crashes in his F1 debut season to put financial pressure on the Grove side.

He came 19th in 2024 on just five points but the Argentinian is reported to bring in around £25 million in sponsorship, explaining why Alpine paid €20 million to Williams and made him the most expensive reserve driver in F1 history.

It is not just the teams lower down the grid either who are increasingly swayed by the chequebook.

Sergio Perez dragged Red Bull down to P3 in the Constructors’ in 2024 but rather than get the boot in the summer break, when he arguably should have, the Mexican’s reported $30 million in sponsorship made Red Bull wait until all other options were ruled out and the title had gone to McLaren.

Colapinto is a perfect example of the new way of getting into F1 – money and taking your chances. For Drugovich, he is on the other side of the coin.

A better racing record than Colapinto but lacking that first grand prix to show his talent to the world and the substantial sponsorship money to make him a candidate that is hard to ignore.

The Brazilian is 25 now, meaning he would be nowhere the youngest driver on the grid if he were to join this season. His F1 chance is almost certainly gone and signing up to a full-time Formula E deal would appear to show that even he believes that too.

Time is ticking down on his F1 career and it will take a stroke of luck, an Alonso injury or a Stroll sickness, to get him his dream but his plight is a warning to all beneath him that getting into F1 is as hard and as luck-based as it has ever been.

F1 is the dream of all drivers in the feeder series but it seems increasingly likely they will be forced to choose between a career like Drugovich’s on the sidelines, or Pourchaire’s and accept there is life outside Formula 1.

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