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Paul Aron didn't begin last year as an obvious contender for the Formula 2 championship, but he quickly emerged a frontrunner - and ended up as the highest-placed driver in the standings without a Formula 1 seat for 2025.
Aron looked to be a chronically overlooked driver until November 2024. At this point, when Jack Doohan had been made Pierre Gasly's team-mate for 2025, Aron was named Alpine's reserve driver - pushing its junior Victor Martins down the order.
It seemed a just reward for the Hitech F2 racer, who eventually finished third in the 2024 standings with the most podiums and poles of any driver.
Yet that promotion to Alpine's ranks comes with major caveats following the arrivals of Franco Colapinto and Ryo Hirakawa, both of whom now share reserve driver status with Aron.
Funding and experience mean Colapinto looks by far the likeliest to swipe Doohan's seat in 2025 if Doohan doesn't meet Alpine's performance targets. So where does all of this leave Aron?
Mercedes-to-Alpine
It's worth a look back to 2024 to recognise just how out of the loop Aron felt. While the likes of Kimi Antonelli, Ollie Bearman, Isack Hadjar and eventual champion Gabriel Bortoleto were making headlines, Aron - by then a former Mercedes junior - was quietly plugging away in the background without an F1 team's logo on his overalls.
"After Monaco [in May 2024], I was leading the championship as a rookie, with the most podiums by far. And I was not getting much attention. So obviously it did feel like I was a bit overlooked," Aron tells The Race.
"And then there were these guys like Bearman and Antonelli who were quite far behind me in the championship and obviously they were getting all the attention. But at the same time, it was understandable. And that didn't really bother me that much.
"I wouldn't say it was a relief getting that opportunity [at Alpine]. It was more [a feeling] of just happiness. It's what I worked towards, and it's what I wanted."
He says Mercedes' decision to drop him - after a stint spanning from 2019 to 2023 - was "nothing personal", acknowledging that it led to his switch from Trident (with which he contested the final two races of the 2023 F2 season) to the more successful Hitech squad for 2024.
His call-up to Alpine's bench followed Hitech founder Oliver Oakes becoming Alpine team principal earlier that year, in August - but don't read any 'professional nepotism' into it.
"I know how it looked from the outside. And I've been part of that kind of talk before when I raced in [Formula] Regional," said Aron.
That's a reference to his 2021 campaign when Aron's older brother, Ralf, himself a racing driver but by that point a team manager at Prema, didn't necessarily make his life easy as his 'boss'.
"The truth was that that was the hardest year of my life,” says Aron, who ended up third in that year's Formula Regional title race. "It was hard to separate him being my team manager and also my brother."
"Alpine is a big organisation. There's many powerful people here [beyond just Oakes], I think it’s a joint decision," he says of his promotion to reserve driver.
"And, stating the facts, if you have a rookie driver who's got the most podiums, the most poles, on average the quickest qualifier, leading the championship for a big part of the season, I think it's fair that the person gets attention from Formula 1."
What about Alpine's other junior?
Alpine's recent reserve driver shake-up, from Aron's arrival to the two subsequent signings, definitely threatens to put Victor Martins in limbo.
In his second year in F2, Martins was expected to challenge for last year's title with ART Grand Prix but ended up finishing seventh in the championship with one win. And Aron's reserve status means Martins has essentially been pushed out; in the end-of-season F1 test, it was Aron who drove alongside Doohan rather than Martins.
Team principal Oakes says Aron did a "mega job" in 2024.
"I think he and Bortoleto have been the class of the field," Oakes tells The Race.
"I feel a bit sorry for him because of a couple of mistakes on his side and on the team... but he's been brilliant, and I think, again, showing some mental strength - to be dropped by Mercedes and then go through all of that this year and then fight for the championship all year long. He's definitely a special talent."
But his response over Martins's future is far more vague and cagey.
"Victor's good, I've known him a long time. I don't want to comment too much on his F2 season because before I was here I was in another team [Hitech], and it's not fair to judge what he's going through. But Victor's a big part of our academy here..." Oakes says.
So while Martins doesn't seem destined to follow the same path as 2023 F2 champion Theo Pourchaire, who was recently dropped from Sauber's academy after six years in its ranks, he does seem out of contention for an F1 seat in the future.
He wasn't really considered for the 2025 gig that went to Doohan (with Valtteri Bottas and Mick Schumacher ahead of Martins in the queue at the time) and now Colapinto, Hirakawa and Aron have pushed Martins to the fringes.
Instead, something like the World Endurance Championship or Formula E feel a more likely longer-term destination for Martins, who - though he may well continue in F2 this year - already took part in rookie tests in both series.
Where does this leave Aron?
Aron has jumped ahead of Martins in the Alpine queue but he won't be doing the same to Colapinto anytime soon.
The Argentinean driver has big funding and nine F1 races under his belt while Aron looks to be spending 2025 on the sidelines - with Hitech fielding Luke Browning and Dino Beganovic in the 2025 F2 championship.
Aron might have had a clearer shot at this year’s F2 title than in 2024. He began last year with seven podiums in the first 14 races but it wasn't until the 26th race of the season, the Qatar feature race, that he actually won.
He looks back and says that after an "ideal" beginning to 2024 he began to find his feet in qualifying - but a confusing drop in race results followed.
"The sad part is that from Barcelona [round six in June] we made a huge step forward in qualifying pace - because up until that point, we weren't quick in qualifying - then the race results started to go backwards," says Aron.
"And the truth is there's nothing, really, I can say... that my mindset was wrong or that the team didn't do a good job or anything like that."
It became clear that Aron was indeed a rapid qualifier but his combative nature would cost him. Hungary, Monza and Silverstone were three such examples. There was misfortune, too: a clutch issue in Hungary and an engine issue in Belgium.
There’s no doubt about Aron’s capabilities now - and that F1 connection will surely take a weight off him in 2025.
“Your goal is always to have some sort of connection in Formula 1. And although it's not a race seat, it's a step in the right direction. So in that sense, I'm very happy and very thankful for [Alpine],” he says.
“Obviously, my goal is to make it to Formula 1 and you never make it there alone. You need good people around you, you need a good team."
He can only wait and see how Doohan’s Alpine 'audition' pans out. A run of spectacular early-season results would leave Colapinto waiting longer.
That seems unlikely given just how swift and enthusiastic the acquisition of Colapinto from Williams was - but it’s not impossible for Doohan to overcome the odds and keep his seat for the rest of 2025, at least.
Regardless, Aron is now at best second in the queue for the Alpine seat. And while Colapinto isn't eligible for the rookie FP1s, Hirakawa is taking one of those in Japan, so in-weekend opportunities may well be quite limited across 2025.
But it's at least a foot in the door, and crucially Aron isn't some holdover from a past regime at Alpine but a driver the new figures in charge - not just Oakes, but Flavio Briatore, who has been quite complimentary in public - went out and signed.
Aron's F1 prospects still look better now than they did when he split with Mercedes. There's still a pathway here - it's just still not as straightforward as for some of his peers.
