Sauber has confirmed Antonio Giovinazzi will get a second opportunity with the Swiss team alongside Kimi Raikkonen in an all-new line-up for 2019.
The Italian has raced with the team before, stepping in for Pascal Wehrlein at the opening two rounds of last season, but a difficult weekend in China seemingly dimmed the star power he had after claiming the GP2 title the year prior.
Since then, Charles Leclerc has become the new darling of the Ferrari academy but Giovinazzi has remained a reserve driver at Maranello and has made Friday appearances for Sauber, including another this weekend in Sochi.
He will head to Russia with a race seat contract in his back pocket, however, and to finally get a full-time chance naturally only caused one reaction.
“I am delighted to be joining the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team,” he said on Tuesday. “This is a dream come true.
“It is a great pleasure to have the chance to race for this team. As an Italian, it is a huge honour for me to represent a brand as iconic and successful as Alfa Romeo in our sport.
“I would like to thank the Scuderia Ferrari and the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team for giving me this great opportunity,” he added. “I am very motivated and cannot wait to start working towards achieving great results together.”
The 24-year-old is thought to be the replacement for Leclerc rather than Ericsson, with his promotion coming within the Scuderia’s academy program as opposed to Raikkonen’s one-on-one deal with Sauber.
It also confirms the departure of Marcus Ericsson after five years on the grid, four of which were with the Hinwil-based operation.
Just days before, however, the Swede was talking up his own performance based on how he had compared with Leclerc.
“I feel that I stepped it up the last five or six weekends,” he said. “I scored more points than Charles [in the five races before Singapore] and Charles has signed a contract with Ferrari for a few years so I think that says quite a bit.
“If I can keep doing that, or even better, that’s what I need to do. If that’s enough for a contract or not that’s not up to me, but I need to keep pushing and trying to impress.”
Ultimately, however, it seems his results were not enough.