The cruel nature of today’s sporting society mean that sportsmen can often find themselves ousted from their team, left high and dry towards the tail end of a season (or even worse the front end of a new one). No one is indispensable.

Today’s announcement from Jolyon Palmer that the Japanese Grand Prix will be his last race for Renault irked me somewhat. Yes, the whole Renault/McLaren/Honda/Toro Rosso situation was perhaps one of the paddocks worst kept secrets in recent memory, within that the Sainz/Renault deal naturally becoming common knowledge too, but at the time we (including Jolyon himself) were all told that he’d see the season out to Abu Dhabi.

What it does it go to prove is that nothing in Formula One is absolute, the Palmer’s stood firm about Jolyon remaining till the end of the season, forcing Renault to honour their contract with him but how long did that last? Two races. Someone somewhere at Enstone must have found an enormous pot of gold to be able to pay off not only the Palmer’s to relinquish their contract, but to also persuade Red Bull to let go of Sainz whilst on argubably the best form of his career. What it’s now not allowing Jolyon to do is let him showcase himself to the other ten teams, exactly what I alluded to above about leaving the guy high and dry. When most contracts are signed, sealed and delivered around this time of year, it’s given Jonathan Palmer an enormous task to find his son something in Formula One for next year.

Having said that, the stagnation of this years driver market, backlogging everything until this time next year will allow them the chance of negotiating something for 2019. Who knows, a year out the sport might be what Jolyon needs, a year to regroup and go from scratch. It’s no secret that the past two years haven’t been the success they perhaps ought to have been.

It’s not a case of talent, Jo’s clearly got some. Not many people win the GP2 championship, only twelve drivers have. It’s just that something clearly hasn’t worked; whether that be Jolyon himself, or the team or a combination of both. There have been glimpses of brilliance, his overtake on Valtteri Bottas in Singapore, in wet conditions, was sublime to watch, and harked back to his championship year in GP2.

On the flip side, as is par for the course in Formula One, one man’s loss is another man’s  gain. Carlos Sainz now finds himself in a works Renault car much earlier than he anticipated. He can use the tail end of this season to familiarise himself with the Renault team, the car and his new environment, allowing him to maximise the opening rounds of 2018.

In fact, there’s another two beneficiaries of this whole saga; Pierre Gasly, who now finds himself in the Toro Rosso for the rest of the year (albeit at the expense of challenging for the Super Formula title in Japan) and Daniil Kvyat being given a reprieve after being dropped by Red Bull for a second time, one would think he’s thanking his lucky stars. With that you’ll get your first look at Toro Rosso’s almost-certain 2018 driver lineup in Austin, with both Gasly staying put and Kvyat back in the car.

The merry-go-round won’t end there though. Next year, for the first time in his career, Daniel Ricciardo will find himself with his own choice to make. As will Max Verstappen. With Bottas and Raikkonen only on one-year extensions, whatever happens at the top of the pecking order will filter down the grid. It’s a tantalising prospect, and no one quite knows how it’s all going to play out. And that’s the way it should be.

Image courtesy of Renault Sport F1