Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich may still have signed up for Audi F1 in a reserve role for the 2025 F1 season, it was said.
Audi F1 was shown at Planetf1. com previously this month that had finished its complete acquisition of Sauber’s striker of the brand change of the 2026 F1 team.
The Swiss headquarters will be included in a new driver alignment for the new season, with Nico Hulkenberg associating in association with 2024 F2 Gabriel Bortoleto after Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu were abandoned at the end of 2024.
Planetf1. com revealed on Monday that you can make Bottas be done for McLaren and Williams visitors after returning to Mercedes in a reserve role for F1 2025.
Drugovich widely reported as a candidate for the Sauber race seat in 2025 before the Bortoleto firm was announced after last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
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And he gave the impression that the 24 -year -old fast can still move to Hinwil for F1 2025, with Drugovich in the race towards the new Sauber reserve driver.
A report by Swiss-German publication Blick, which is known to have close links to Sauber, has claimed that the team are set to choose between Drugovich and Antonio Giovinazzi for a 2025 reserve role.
The rumour has emerged despite Aston Martin confirming earlier this month that Drugovich will remain as the team’s test and reserve driver for the F1 2025 season, sharing the role with former McLaren racer Stoffel Vandoorne.
If true, it is unclear whether Drugovich would combine the Aston Martin and Sauber reserve roles for 2025, with it considered highly unusual for two rival teams with no pre-existing technical partnership to share the same reserve driver.
Despite winning the prestigious name of F2 (previously GP2) in 2022, Drugovich has fought until his way in a F1 race seat since Aston Martin joined more than two years ago.
The Maringa-born driver made two practice appearances for the Silverstone-based team in 2024, driving in FP1 in Mexico and Abu Dhabi.
With existing Aston Martin racing drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance, they walk under the contract for at least the next two seasons, Drugovich would possibly be forced to explore other features to maintain their hopes of TouchDown in a permanent alive F1 seat.
Giovinazzi, meanwhile, is familiar to Sauber, having spent 3 whole seasons with the team, then at the Festival as Alfa Romeo, between 2019 and 2021.
The Italian has since emerged as a key figure in Ferrari’s World Endurance Championship operation, winning the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours race in 2023.
Last week’s reports said that Giovinazzi was about to preserve his role as a Ferrari reserve motor force, with Sauber’s existing prestige as Ferrari visiting team that makes him an apparent option for the Swiss team by 2025.
He intended that Giovinazzi can simply a percentage of Ferrari’s reserve role with Zhou and Oliver Bearman, who will participate in their first full season with HAAS in F1 2025.
As a component of the plans offered, Bearman is probably as the main force of the Ferrari reserve and accentuates if Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc are excluded.
However, in an emergency situation such as the Saudi Arabia Grand of last year, where Carlos Sainz retired in a while before final education after reaching an appendicitis, Giovinazzi would be the driving force to stop in the short term.
However, Giovinazzi racing commitments mean that Ferrari can be forced to designate a motor force of the third reserve to fill the weekend when F1 appears in opposition to Wec events.
Zhou, who has no plans to race in another category in 2025, has been heavily linked with a Ferrari reserve role over recent months and confirmed at last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix that he has held talks with Ferrari over a move.
And he revealed that he is keen for any reserve role to include some track time as he targets a return to a permanent F1 seat for 2026.
He told the media added Planetf1. com: “Stay in F1 [is my goal].
“It would be in a reserve role, but I still don’t know where to go. I did not do what resolution to do.
“We already spoke to some teams already before the [Sauber exit] announcement was released, but after the announcement a few other teams approached us, so quite a few good options I see my future with.
“But for me, I feel that I am in a position where there is no hurry to make a resolution because I have to make sure that I am in a team that can give me the possibility of having a seat [on the network] and also in a team I can continue to grow as a driver.
“We want to take a little more time. It will not be very [soon or in the coming months. “
In a specific question about the rumors of a movement to Ferrari, he replied: “They all want] to drive in red, specifically for the headquarters of the race.
“For the reserve [role], they show some interest so we are discussing it. There’s other options as well, so there’s no one team or the other I would prefer to join.
“I just need to make sure that I am in a team that has an intelligent or competitive car that I can continue to learn and continue learning on my account, from a force force and a team’s perspective.
“And also [a team] to get me, test and bring the reserve role for development paintings.
“I would say you’ll see me in the paddock. What color I don’t know, so I’m going to leave this TB. “
A Ferrari reserve role would likely see Zhou emerge as a serious contender to join the new Cadillac team for F1 2026.
Ferrari announced last month that they had completed a “multiple years” technical association with Cadillac F1 to supply motors and gearboxes of 2026, the American team that produces its own food unit of the 2028 season.
Graeme Lowdon, former managing director of the now missing Marussia F1 team, recently appointed as director of the Cadillac F1 team.
He is understood to be a member of Zhou’s management team.
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