Sauber has appointed Zane Maloney as one of its reserve drivers for the 2024 F1 season.
The team, which competed as Alfa Romeo last year, has also enlisted Maloney to its young driver academy.Maloney, who is yet to participate in an official F1 test, will join fellow Sauber Academy member Theo Pourchaire as one of the team’s reserve drivers for the new season. While Maloney will continue to race in Formula 2, Pourchaire is moving to Japan’s Super Formula series and will therefore be unavailable during some F1 rounds.
Sauber’s new hiring made his F2 debut with Rodin Carlin last year and will continue to drive for the same team this season. The 20-year-old from Bridgetown in Barbados won the British Formula 4 championship in 2019 after graduating from karts.
He finished the 2022 Formula 3 season as runner-up to Victor Martins, ending the year with a strong run of form which saw him win the final three feature races. Although he failed to win during his first season of F2 he reached the podium four times, all in feature races.
Maloney said he felt honoured to join Sauber. “The Sauber name resonates with Formula 1, as it has been part of the sport for over thirty years, paving the way for so many drivers who went on to achieve great success.
I am pleased to become part of this family, and I am looking forward to working together this season, as I move closer to my goal of becoming a Formula 1 driver.”
Sauber Academy director Beat Zehnder said Maloney had made “remarkable” progress through the junior categories. “With his speed and potential, he surely makes a great addition to our talented roster.
“In addition to his Formula 2 campaign, where he will aim to succeed our own Theo Pourchaire to the title, Zane will also share with him the reserve driver role for Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber. On behalf of the whole team, I give him my warmest welcome onboard, and look forward to working together and achieving great success.”
View the current list of 2024 F1 drivers and teams
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
- Pictures: Red Bull’s aggressive new sidepod design revealed in detail at test
- Pictures: New views of Mercedes W15 running in Bahrain test
- Pictures: 2024 F1 pre-season testing day one: Bahrain
- Pictures: Haas VF-24 officially presented as testing begins in Bahrain
- Driver line-up confirmed for sole pre-season F1 test
MichaelN
31st January 2024, 16:33
A reserve driver who has never tested in an official test… that’s nice.
Maybe I missed something, but it seems like he doesn’t have enough points for a superlicense. The last three years are his best scoring (he only had 1 point for coming 8th in the Euroformula Open in 2020), and those are 10 points for coming 4th in Formula Regional Europe, 25 points for coming 2nd in the F3 series, and 3 points for coming 10th in F2 in 2023. So… 38 points rather than 40.
As an aside, when is Sauber going to ‘add some value’ to F1 by winning a race?
Shimks (@shimks)
31st January 2024, 17:28
Good move by Sauber. A great prospect, Maloney. Exciting racer.
Ludewig
1st February 2024, 14:41
That’s Maloney!