2025 Components 2 runner-up Jak Crawford says the 2027 season might be his greatest shot at securing a seat in Components 1.
A former Crimson Bull junior, Crawford has been a check driver for Aston Martin for the previous two years however has did not get an opportunity on this planet championship, because the crew retained its line-up of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
The Texan additionally held talks with Cadillac, however by no means actually stood an opportunity towards veterans Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas.
Like many profitable children earlier than him, Crawford is due to this fact embarking on a racing-less season as a reserve driver, nonetheless at Aston Martin. He’s hoping to emulate the likes of Oscar Piastri, who spent 2022 on the sidelines after profitable the F2 title however was coveted by a number of groups for his F1 debut in 2023 and made a high-profile transfer from Alpine to McLaren.
“I feel ‘27 is, after all, my closest shot,” Crawford stated eventually 12 months’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. “I will be hopefully nonetheless related then, after solely a 12 months out racing in F2, ending that nicely, and being within the paddock in any respect the races subsequent 12 months. I really feel prefer it’s good to be across the paddock, it retains your identify on folks’s mouths, folks see you. So I feel ‘27 is my greatest alternative for a race seat.”
Nevertheless, not each third driver has gone on to race in Components 1, removed from it – as proven by former Aston Martin reserve Felipe Drugovich, who not too long ago departed the crew to make a full-time swap to Components E, after biding his time in that position for 3 years.
Jak Crawford, Aston Martin F1 Group
Photograph by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
“In fact, there’s at all times a little bit of fear which you could’t get a seat in Components 1 as a result of it is everybody’s dream,” Crawford admitted. “All of the drivers which are right here being reserve drivers, all of them wish to race full-time in F1. So, after all, you are not there but, so you are still making an attempt to work for that, and also you additionally must earn it, after all.
“I am not nervous. I really feel like if I do job in my position, then there might be alternatives sooner or later.”
So far as the shortage of a racing programme is worried, Crawford is adamant that this gained’t harm his prospects in the long term – notably as he has already accomplished many F1 exams at Aston, with extra on the desk this 12 months.
“I haven’t got to additionally deal with Components 2 and Components E, which I’ve completed a bit this 12 months,” the previous Andretti Components E reserve driver identified. “Full focus [is] on the F1 programme, so it will be good to be totally centered on that, and I feel that prepares me one of the best.
“I really feel like I am at degree, particularly in my racing, in order that something after that I simply have to type of be taught and be across the Components 1 crew – and I really feel like something I have to be taught in Components 1, in addition to clearly racing in Components 1, I can do with monitor time, with simulator time, with being on the races.”
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