F1: The Jean-Eric Vergne dilemma

With Mark Webber announcing his shock retirement in June 2013, the question of ‘who will partner up with Vettel?’ came in. Although many options were looked into first and even more rumours circulating, Red Bull Racing have almost signed Daniel Ricciardo who currently drives for the Toro Rosso team.

In his first season with Toro Rosso, Daniel Ricciardo managed to get only 10 points and finishing 18th in the Drivers’ Championship. It seems like the driver has had a large amount of improvement in his driving skills and has already managed 12 points, only halfway through the current season, and stands 14th in the Drivers’ Championship. Red Bull Racing may have caught this massive improvement and have almost confirmed him as the 2nd driver.

But what does this mean for his soon to be former teammate Jean-Eric Vergne? Jean-Eric Vergne joined Toro Rosso in the same season as Daniel Ricciardo and his performance has been more or less of the same quality as his teammate. He finished the 2012 season a position above his teammate i.e. in the 17th position with 16 points. And in the current season, he’s again one position above Daniel Ricciardo with 13 points.

This clearly shows that Jean-Eric Vergne has given a better performance than Daniel Ricciardo till date, as they both drive the same car for the same team, and neither has any undue advantage. Jean-Eric Vergne, like his teammate, has also shown the same level of improvement. So, with Red Bull Racing signing Daniel Ricciardo, it is either something they see in him beyond pure numbers or a gamble to keep ego clashes with Sebastian Vettel away. In either case, it clearly means that Jean-Eric Vergne has the same potential as Daniel Ricciardo and is hoping to join a better team.

Although from this point of view, it may seem really crushing for Jean-Eric Vergne, he has an excellent advantage if he decides to stay with Toro Rosso. That being, with the exit of Daniel Ricciardo next year, he has a far more significant chance of proving himself further and being signed up as a first choice driver by a Constructor of a higher rank. This may take just more than a year but it will be worth it since he’ll become the first choice driver as opposed to his current teammate who will always be second fiddle to the three time consecutive world champion, Sebastian Vettel.

There is also a disadvantage, that if Toro Rosso sign a driver which turns out to be better than Jean-Eric Vergne, he will again have to fight his way to the top, which will be even harder as he’ll already be a number two driver in his current team.

There are still a lot of ifs and buts for Jean-Eric Vergne, but the wise thing to do would be to wait and see who Toro Rosso announces as their second driver for the upcoming season, and not get distracted by all this and focus on the current season at hand, which has so far been very good.