The biggest loser from F1's explosive silly season

Less than a month ago, Esteban Ocon appeared a shoo-in for a 2019 Renault Formula 1 seat. The Mercedes junior now faces a desperate wait to see if any opportunities will come his way.

Jonathan Noble Aug 23, 2018, 9:01 AM

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Formula 1's summer break was supposed to be the time when teams and drivers kicked back on the beach to recharge their batteries after an intense first half of the campaign.

But no sooner had F1's engines fallen silent after the post-Hungarian Grand Prix test, and factory doors at teams closed for the shutdown, than the driver market silly season exploded in unpredictable fashion.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.