Felipe Drugovich admits finding a seat on the FIA Formula 1 World Championship grid in 2023 is unlikely to materialise, but the Brazilian is looking to become a reserve driver somewhere next year.
The current FIA Formula 2 Championship leader does not currently have ties with a Formula 1 team, unlike many of his rivals in the series, including closest rivals Théo Pourchaire and Logan Sargeant, who are involved in the Sauber Junior Team and Williams Academy respectively.
Drugovich currently holds a forty-three point advantage over Pourchaire with just three rounds of the season remaining, and his focus does remain on clinching the title this year, but he does still have aspirations in becoming Brazil’s next Formula 1 driver.
“I see my future… I mean, somehow I’m going to be able to drive something next year,” Drugovich is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “I still don’t know what it is, what I’m going to drive next year I don’t know.
“It might happen like Nyck [de Vries], I think getting to F1 nowadays is very very difficult and it’s looking like the opportunities for a main seat in F1 next year are obviously very limited.
“I think there is still the potential for a reserve seat somewhere so we need to try and look at that and find maybe a reserve seat somewhere. Other than that, there are other categories that we can drive in somewhere else.
“But for now, I am focused on this championship, trying to win it, and hopefully this result might get me to F1 someday. Nothing to worry about now.”
Surprisingly, in a field that includes drivers included in the Red Bull Junior Team (Liam Lawson, Ayuma Iwasa, Dennis Hauger and Jehan Daruvala, Mercedes-Benz Junior Team (Frederik Vesti), Alpine Academy (Jack Doohan and Olli Caldwell), Sauber (Pourchaire) and Williams (Sargeant), Drugovich finds himself unattached to a team but is on top of the championship standings.
Drugovich believes a reserve driver seat is his most likely opportunity to get into Formula 1 next season, and despite rumours of possibly racing in the NTT IndyCar Series, he would prefer to exhaust his options in F1 before committing elsewhere.
“I think talking about F1, to be fair obviously we try to contact every team we can and see what they say,” he said. “That’s looking more towards a reserve seat, I don’t know, we have to see, but we need to keep looking at it and meanwhile we have to score the results and that’s something that might help me to get a seat.
“On the other hand, I think we’re not looking very much into IndyCar, I think we’re just trying to stay focused on F1 – that’s my dream, my goal, and we’re trying to get into that first of all.
“Obviously IndyCar is a great category but at the moment I’m fully focused on F1.”