Jean-Eric Vergne Shows He Deserves 2nd Chance with New Team in 2015 F1 Season

Even the most heartless souls in the Formula One paddock must currently feel a degree of sympathy for Jean-Eric Vergne.

Last month, Scuderia Toro Rosso, his team of almost three years, became the first outfit to announce their line-up for the 2015 campaign, featuring the most predictable driver change of what has grown to be known as the "silly season."

Vergne's place at Toro Rosso, it was confirmed, would be taken by Max Verstappen, the highly rated 16-year-old, who is set to become the youngest competitor in the history of the sport when he lines up on the grid, aged 17, at next year's Australian Grand Prix.

Every new beginning is an old ending, and while Verstappen has spent the last few weeks goofing around in ageing F1 machinery—crashing during a street demo in Rotterdam, the Netherlands—all in the name of preparation for his debut, Vergne has had to attend to the more serious matter of trying to rescue his F1 career.

To stand any chance of doing that, the Frenchman—since the Belgian Grand Prix, the first event since Toro Rosso announced their 2015 plans—has had to drive like he has never driven before and, in doing so, catch the eyes of team principals and the wider world in the same way that, for instance, Nico Hulkenberg has done since 2012.

In short, he needed to force teams to run out of reasons not to sign him.

And after two rather anonymous results in Belgium and Italy, Vergne took the first major step toward salvation with what Toro Rosso's official website described as "one of the best drives of his Formula 1 career" in the Singapore Grand Prix.

The nature of the 24-year-old's performance at the Singapore Grand Prix was remarkably similar to the Monaco Grand Prix display of Jules Bianchi, his compatriot, who was hurriedly ordained as a Ferrari world champion in waiting after taking two points with a ninth-place finish at the principality.

Like Bianchi in Monaco, Vergne—particularly in the dying stages of the race—produced a battling performance by taking his car to a position that it arguably had no right to be in, sixth place, with even a couple of penalties failing to halt his progress.

The two penalties handed to Vergne, for exceeding track limits when passing first Kimi Raikkonen and then Pastor Maldonado, were perhaps consequences of his desperation to impress—but the way in which he handled the setbacks, particularly the latter, was most impressive for a driver who is one of the more emotionally charged competitors on the current grid.

Having being given a five-second time penalty by the FIA race stewards on Lap 57 of what turned out to be just 60—the extended safety car period meant the distance was shortened by one lap—Vergne, running in ninth at the time, had a job on his hands to even register a point with Valtteri Bottas, on old tyres, creating something of a road block up the road, containing Kimi Raikkonen and Hulkenberg.

When he waltzed up to the rear of the pack, however, Vergne simply and calmly picked them off one by one, passing the Force India, the Ferrari and the Williams over the course of just 18 corners between the 59th and final laps.

It was a glorious example of a driver with absolutely no time to waste, with Vergne completing his move on the Mercedes-powered Hulkenberg by edging the Force India towards the wall on the exit of Turn 14 and therefore preventing any potential counter-attack.

His pass on Raikkonen into the tricky Turn 1, meanwhile, was a showcase of bravery and opportunism, while his decisive manoeuvre on Bottas just eight bends later was arguably the move of the entire grand prix, with the Frenchman effectively mugging the Finn of sixth position by lunging down the inside of Turn 9.

From that point, it was about fleeing the scene before Bottas' tyres tumbled off the cliff for Vergne, who cemented his position by setting a 1m54.330s on Lap 60, a time only bettered by race winner Lewis Hamilton on that particular lap, according to the FIA's race lap analysis. 

Vergne needn't have worried, however, with Sergio Perez, the seventh-placed driver, finishing 2.2 seconds behind the Toro Rosso despite that five-second penalty, as per the official F1 website.

Soon after the chequered flag, it was reported by Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz that Sauber, one of only two teams who are yet to score a point this season, would be willing to offer Vergne—who, according to Autosport's Gary Watkins, is in contention for a Nissan seat in the World Endurance Championship—a Formula One lifeline, provided that the Frenchman can offer a budget.

And although it remains to be seen whether Vergne would be able to stand on his own two feet from a budget perspective when he is released into the wild by Red Bull at the end of the year—a real concern when you consider his rather modest, understated profile—he would be an ideal signing for a lower mid-grid or backmarker outfit for 2015.

The Frenchman often excels—due to his excellent levels of car control—in low-grip conditions, including wet races and events held on street circuits, which are precisely the kind of scenarios in which, in their current guise, Sauber—as well as Marussia, Caterham and even Lotus—can dare to dream of scoring points.

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Whether Vergne himself would entertain what would almost certainly be a backward step is another matter entirely, although the prospect of being the central focus of a team, in contrast to the pressurised atmosphere that Toro Rosso can sometimes possess, would undoubtedly raise his confidence as well as aid his development as a Formula One driver.

Although Toro Rosso's signing of the teenage Verstappen appeared to signal the end of Vergne's F1 career, his performance in the Singapore Grand Prix has proven that there's plenty of life in the old dog yet.