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The 2024 F1 season is an interesting one in terms of the grid of drivers that will be racing next season. For the first time in the sport's 70-plus years of existence, the same grid will be field in the first race of the season that was fielded in the last race of the previous season.
That does not however mean that F1 drivers on the current grid have the most secure seats. On the contrary, there are multiple drivers on the current grid that are actually at risk of getting fired by their respective teams by the end of the season and replaced by someone else. Who are they? Let's take a look.
#1 Zhou Guanyu (Sauber)
Zhou Guanyu has been part of the F1 grid for two years now and the driver has not had a single standout performance. That's more than 40 races in a career and not once has he had a performance that would make everyone sit back and take notice of what the young driver is doing. While a part of it has to be the car under him - the Alfa Romeo/Sauber was one of the more underperforming cars in F1 in the last two seasons - another part has to be attributed to the driver.
In terms of junior career accolades and accomplishments, Guanyu has not set the world on fire in any which way. His junior career was filled with moments where he had a few good performances and the rest of the season was a bit of an afterthought. That phenomenon has continued in F1 as well.
Guanyu is a decent F1 driver but is he someone who a team should pick over a Theo Pourchaire? Probably not. Next season, unless the Chinese driver makes serious strides in his performance he risks losing his spot at a team soon to be taken over by Audi.
#2 Kevin Magnussen (Haas F1)
Kevin Magnussen's contract extension this season by Haas was something that caught the eye of everyone involved. The Danish driver was just not doing a good enough job to keep his seat. There was a point in the 2023 F1 season when Magnussen was on average looking at a deficit of half a second in qualifying to teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
Even at the end of the season, the gaping difference in performance of the two drivers just stood out more than anything. When we talk about the 2025 F1 season, one has to think that Guenther Steiner is keeping his options open. He's looking at teams and he's looking at drivers that could potentially replace Magnussen in case the performances don't improve.
If Magnussen doesn't show significant improvement, it would be tough to see him keep his seat, especially with Ollie Bearman waiting in the wings after his second F2 season.
#3 Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
For Sergio Perez the situation is quite simple: he has to prove to Red Bull that he could be at a respectable gap to his teammate Max Verstappen. One of the major issues that Perez faced this season was the expectations that he had for himself. The Mexican prided himself in challenging Verstappen for the title.
When that didn't happen and the gap continued to get bigger, Perez started to implode a little. The driver's performance took a dip and he was never able to recover. If the gap to Verstappen continues in 2024, Red Bull will keep its options open, and one can assume that Daniel Ricciardo might be the man the team defaults to as the key replacement.
