The stupid F1 season is moving up a gear after Haas’...

The Formula 1 season has moved up a gear following news that Haas has fired both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean for 2021.

Yesterday the team confirmed that both drivers wanted to leave the company. Grosjean said team boss Günther Steiner had made a financial decision.

Though owned by billionaire Gene Haas, speculation about Haas’s future has swirled for several months.

So much so that the team could call the time for Formula 1 sooner rather than later, but in recent months it has confirmed its place on the grid by signing the latest incarnation of the Concorde deal and doing it for at least one more to the sport tied year.

However, a change in the timetable is a significant development, especially as there are currently a large number of potential replacement products on the market.

A total of three teams have yet to announce their driver line-ups, namely AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and Haas, while neither Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) nor Alex Albon (Red Bull) have been confirmed beyond the end of the current season.

On the way to Michael Schumacher’s record of seven drivers’ world championships, Hamilton is expected to extend his contact for another three years.

At Red Bull, things are less secure for Albon as Sergio Perez, Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly are all linked to this drive.

The UK-born Thai driver has public support from Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, but it cannot be overlooked that he was largely overshadowed by Max Verstappen in 2021.

Hulkenberg has shown his well-documented skills with three cameos for Racing Point this year (two if you exclude the DNS at the UK Grand Prix), and while that door remains closed for the next season thanks to Sebastian Vettel’s arrival, he remains one of the most attractive free agents on the market.

That said, he would be the first rider to be nominated to a Red Bull seat from outside his program since Mark Webber joined the team in 2007.

The other option is Perez, who has both an abundance of talent and strong support, the latter being less important to the squad.

Instead, this could come in handy for a team like Williams, as the Mexican is attached to the seat that George Russell occupies for the next year.

Claire Williams, deputy team principal, spoke to Speedcafe.com before the team was sold and confirmed that Russell should stay with the operation for 2021.

Under new leadership, the driver supported by Mercedes was the subject of growing speculation despite his strong performances.

Such a move would bring a highly rated youngster onto the market, but with no Mercedes-facing seats currently available, it may be out for a season, as was Esteban Ocon.

Of the three teams without a confirmed driver, two are geared towards Ferrari.

While Haas’ relationship is largely technical in nature, Alfa Romeo is a little closer to one another, with Scuderia contributing to driver selection.

This is how Antonio Giovinazzi found his way there, and so Mick Schumacher could do the same for 2021.

In the Ferrari Driver Academy there is something like a traffic jam in which Schumacher, Callum Ilott and Robert Shwartzman are waiting in the starting blocks.

The former two were supposed to be tested at the Eifel Grand Prix with Alfa Romeo and Haas before opening training was canceled, while Shwartzman is scheduled for the end of the year in Abu Dhabi.

It is not irrational to assume that Ferrari could take advantage of these relationships and put one or more of its drivers on one of these teams to use them as a kind of pseudo-AlphaTauri.

At Red Bull, things are just as unclear, with a similarly long list of names associated with both teams.

Hulkenberg and Perez have both been questioned by Marko as suitable candidates for the seat currently occupied by Albon, raising the question of where the Thai driver ends up.

AlphaTauri currently has Pierre Gasly who has been in strong shape and Daniil Kvyat who seems to be on his way out.

Japanese Formula 2 driver Yuki Tsunoda was named as a possible candidate for Kvyat’s seat, which would turn the others on the surface into a head-to-head battle between Albon and Gasly.

Of the two, Gasly was the more impressive in 2021, but he did not appear in the senior team in 2020.

How that resolves itself will be a case where Marko and Red Bull see a strong long-term perspective while another youth is destined to get turf.

All in all, a fascinating, silly season with next year’s starting field manages to look very different no matter what happens from here.

2021 F1 driver contracts