Mid-season driver swaps can happen in F1 for a whole host of different reasons. We've ranked the 10 best from the 21st century.
In the high-pressure world of Formula 1, any change of driver is a fine line of risk and reward.
Whilst Lawson’s time substituting for Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri might not yet be over, how do you think he compares to his 21st century predecessors? With the ground rules laid out, here are our ten greatest mid-season driver swaps of the 21st century.With regular driver Christijan Albers dropped by the back-of-the-grid Spyker team due to failed sponsor payments, there was an unlikely debut for Markus Winkelhock at the European GP. The German had a respectable, but not spectacular, junior driver record, and was not widely tipped to be in Formula 1 long. In fact, his career lasted for one memorable Grand Prix.
He lost out on an outside chance of a 2007 drive to a rookie called Lewis Hamilton…wonder what happened to him?After Fernando Alonso had spectacularly crashed out of the previous race in Australia, the two-time World Champion was sidelined for the following round in Bahrain. As a result, development driver and 2015 GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne was called up for the second seat alongside Jenson Button.
Whilst he wasn’t on the pace of temporary teammate Jarno Trulli at the first race, the Japanese driver certainly made an impact. Despite a collision with countryman Kazuki Nakajima, his fearless racing style won admirers and ruffled the feathers of champion-elect Jenson Button. Kobayashi was retained for the season finale in Abu Dhabi, and raced well to P6 ahead of Trulli, a performance which helped secure a seat at Sauber for 2010.How things can change in the space of twelve months.
Out-qualifying Heidfeld on his debut, Kubica was unlucky to be disqualified from a point-scoring finish at his first race at the Hungarian GP. However, he would soon trump this with a brilliant drive at Monza, where he claimed third place in only his third Grand Prix. It proved to be the springboard for a promising career, which was unfortunately cut short due to a pre-season crash in 2011.
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