Steiner shares big F1 2025 driver market prediction before silly season

After a stable driver market that saw no changes over the winter break, 2024 could be a very different story, with 14 drivers out of contract at the end of the upcoming campaign. 

And Haas team principal Steiner, whose drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg are among those on deals coming towards a conclusion, is expecting a particularly dramatic silly season. 

“I think there’s a lot of potential at the end of 2024, focusing on ’25, I think there’s a big opportunity for young drivers to come in,” Steiner said in an interview with Sky F1’s Craig Slater. 

“Because some of them, the drivers who are there now or will be at the end of ’24, maybe stop doing it.

“Some of them will have not performed, nobody will pick them up. Some, I see a better opportunity in taking a risk with a young driver than keeping somebody who didn’t perform.”

Steiner reckons the instant success of McLaren’s impressive rookie Oscar Piastri could prompt other teams to gamble on young drivers for 2025 and beyond. 

“Everybody was scared about rookies. [Piastri] came in and was good straight away,” Steiner continued. 

“We now see these things and say ‘OK, it worked with Piastri – why would it not work with somebody else? You have some history there now.’

“So it could be that, in ’25 with no changes for ’24, all of a sudden we have got three, four, or five new guys… I think that could happen.”