Ten Drivers who will win a Championship in the Future

Today we'll look at young guns. These are the drivers in their respective series who seem to be earmarked as future champions already. We'll get straight into it, I don't feel like there's anything else I need to say up here.

F1: George Russell

There's a number of excellent young drivers in F1. Charles Leclerc seems to already be a championship contender, and Lando Norris and Alex Albon are also good shouts for this, but I'll pick George Russel, who was the least lucky driver in F1 last year. He scored zero points, due to the car being rubbish, but the one race where he didn't had a decent run was the madness at Germany, and with Kubica snagging a point, he ended up bottom of the standings. However, he often had the best of Kubica last year and, being a Mercedes junior, is in a really good position to be able to have a good career in F1.

Supercars: Todd Hazlewood

Supercars is a similar situation to F1. It has a plethora of youngsters; Jack le Brocq, Macaulay Jones, Garry Jacobson, Jake Kostecki, Zane Goddard and most likely Bryce Fullwood next year, with Tom Randle, Will Brown, Brodie Kostecki, Tyler Everingham and Kurt Kostecki waiting in the wings. But I've gone with Todd Hazlewood. At times this year you wondered if he was taking an ordinary car and making it look excellent, and while around 15th did seem to be right for the car (their ordinary day at Bathurst excepted), he dragged it into two shootouts and qualified fourth each time. He;s signed for a bigger team in BJR this year and could be a future headliner of the category.

MotoGP: Fabio Quartararo

A lot of MotoGP's future stars are just stepping up in 2020, like Brad Binder and Alex Marquez, so it's hard to figure out who the most likely procpect is when half haven't raced in the category yet. With that said, it's hard not to pick Fabio Quatartaro if you adjudge that he didn't challenge for the title this year. Given he was not in the factory seat at Yamaha, I'm going to agree with that and pick him. I wrote a lot about him in my 10 Overachievers of 2019, and it's hard to see him not being a title winner in three or four years.

WEC: Job van Uitert

It's rare to see young drivers in the WEC itself, sort of like the WTCC as well. It has a feeder category to the same rules (LMP1 excepted) in the ELMS and that's where most drivers get their break. Based on his driving in last year's Le Mans, Job van Uitert isn't most drivers. He's only appeared twice, but one of those was an absolutely charging drive at Le Mans itself to put his car firmly in contention. Soon he may be the new name on the lips of endurance fans.

Formula E: Maxi Gunther

It's rare to see youngsters in Formula E as many do cross-programs with the WEC or the WTCC, both series that aren't renowned for young talent but to the existence of the ELMS and the ETCC. Maxi Gunther, though, is a fastly rising star. He drove for Dragon last year, massively outperforming his teammate, LMP1 driver Jose Maria Lopez. He was rewarded with a BMW seat this year and, while he didn't score a point in Ad Diriyah, his teammate is at the top of the points. In a competitive car, Gunther could be a force for years to come. It would, though, be remiss of me not to mention Nyck de Vries, the reigning Formula Two champion, at Mercedes as another name to watch.

NASCAR: Erik Jones

NASCAR has a decent amount of young talent. Most of these drivers are either stepping up to the Cup in 2020 (Cole Custer, John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick) or, bizarrely, seemingly without a ride (Dan Hemric, Daniel Suarez). One name that stands out, with a high level ride at Joe Gibbs Motorsport at just 23, is Erik Jones. His main advantage over the other young drivers isn't necessarily skill, but three of the best current NASCAR drivers as teammates in Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. He could be one to watch.

IndyCar: Colton Herta

Not much conjecture about this one. Colton Herta won his second ever IndyCar race at COTA, followed up with three more poles and a fastest lap award in the rest of the season, and got a ride at Andretti as a result. It's obvious. Others who would be in contention if possibly the best kid in 20 years wasn't around would be Rinus VK, category-entering driver Alex Palou and upcoming McLaren drivers Oliver Askew and Pato O'Ward.

DTM: Fabio Scherer

It was tempting to pick Jonathan Aberdein or Ferdinand Habsburg (whose full name I will put at the bottom) as my driver for DTM. However, I think that despite my attempt to choose drivers who competed in 2019, Scherer is a better prospect. He replaces Aberdein who did very well last season, which shows how highly Audi and WRT officials rate him. While he doesn't have any titles, he's shown he is extremely competitive and could become one of the better dirvers in DTM at a future point. Also, Ferdinand Habsburg's full name is Ferdinand Zvonimir Maria Balthus Keith Michael Otto Antal Bahnam Leonhard von Habsburg-Lothringen, for anyone interested.

WTCR: Mikel Azcona

For reasons I've explained before, there isn't that much young talent in the WTCR, rather a lot of experience. However, Mikel Azcona is already a premier driver of the TCR class at age 23. He's finished second in Renault Clio Eurocup. Second in Seat Eurocup. Second in the Audi TT Cup. First in ETCR. And now sixth in WTCR, where his teammate finished 23rd. It bodes well for his future.

BTCC:

Finally we move to the BTCC. This championship is easier than most, as it has the Jack Sears trophy for drivers who haven't socred a podium yet (i.e. rising stars, mostly) and, looking at the data, the highest placed young driver is VW driver Bobby Thompson. He had a decent year, scoring a solid number of main-series points for a rookie and taking one Jack Sears class victory, in the first race of the season at Silverstone. He could be a star of the future, but he has more mature-age rookies/rising stars like Rory Butcher and Tom Oliphant in his way.