Aron, 21, is not however the first Estonian to get to sit in an F1 car seat on a practice basis: Marko Asmer was BMW Sauber's test driver back in 2008, and had tested for Williams several years before that.

Aron meanwhile raced in F2 2023–2024, finishing third for Hitech in the drivers' standings last season.

Having also been part of the Mercedes junior program 2019–23, Aron says he sees himself as part of the F1 world, demonstrating that by taking part in free practice at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix.

"When I took part in my first free practices, it didn't matter what name came over the radio — a driver was a driver and a car was a car. But of course, when I'm out of the car, I've spent so little time in the Formula 1 environment: When I attend the drivers' meetings on Fridays, it's of course really cool to see those drivers in one room. Talking to them is very interesting, and you look up to them a little, but the most important thing is that when you're on track, you don't have that feeling. On track, every driver is just another competitor," he said when visiting the ERR Sport studio.

Aron is reserve driver for the Alpine team, a French team which can trace its lineage back to the former Renault team, and before that Benetton. Alpine's lead driver is Frenchman Pierre Gasly, while Argentine Franco Colapinto is now second-string driver, having replaced Australian Jack Doohan.

The team's test or reserve driver roles are also filled by Ryo Hirakawa and Kush Maini, in addition to Aron.

"My primary task is that if something happens to one of the drivers, I must be ready to jump in the car and take their position," Aron recounted about his role. This means he must be on standby at team HQ in Enstone in Oxfordshire, England, ready to fly to wherever in the world the weekend's race meeting might be, if needed.

"That situation doesn't occur on a daily basis; my work every day lies in the simulator, where I prepare the team before each race," Aron went on. "On Fridays, after the second free practice, I'm there until two or three in the morning, then on Saturday morning I take the first flight to the track. During the week it's simulator work, on weekends I'm at the track. Since I have much more time than the [main] drivers, I have to talk to a lot of people and do a lot of interviews."

However, the free practice Aron has taken part in was with Kick Sauber, another team with a long motorsport pedigree. Alpine has an agreement with Sauber which allowed the Estonian to take part in the first free practice at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone early last month, and at the Hungaroring a month later.

Aron shed some light about how the line is trod here considering he was driving a rival team's car. "We had discussed honestly with Sauber that they would not provide me all the information, because Sauber and Alpine are competitors. It was known that from Saturday I would be back with Alpine. I was given as much information as I needed, and I learned a few things that Alpine wanted to know, but, broadly speaking, after the first free practice, I was no longer allowed around the engineers and I was not given more information," he explained.

As for this season so far, which has 10 races left to run after the current summer break, Aron said things had gone well. "Of course I hoped that this season I would get to race, but looking at where we were last year and when we made the decision that I would be in the role of Alpine's reserve driver this year, in fact everything has gone as expected and gone well."

"Of course there was hope that maybe the chance would come to get in the car this year — the year is not over yet, that chance is still there — but, broadly speaking, we knew it would be the kind of season where you have to be around the right people, keep your name in the conversation, and make the most of every opportunity," he added.

This week marks the start of the drivers' summer break, which means practically his first days off of 2025. "For two weeks, everything is shut down and working is forbidden," he noted.

Thanks to the unpredictable schedule of a reserve driver, it is difficult to foresee what will come next, Aron said, including any potential for a main drive.

"In the bigger picture — who really knows. My goal for this season is very simple: all the opportunities I'm given; everything that is under my control, I try to do as well as I can. Anyone who follows Formula 1 even a little knows that quite a lot happens behind closed doors there. There are many things that influence those decisions. It's very hard to say how close I am to that; so far, everything has gone as we hoped and expected. We have to see what the future brings. Half the season is still ahead, and hopefully it promises good things."

As a reserve driver, his season schedule has changed nearly a dozen times, making it difficult to predict even the near future. "I know that after the summer break there are three free practices with Alpine; they have also stated that publicly. I myself know which tracks these should be at, but since the team has not released that information, I am not allowed to state it publicly. The tests happen so spontaneously, it's hard to predict anything," he concluded.

Born in Tallinn and the younger brother of sportscar driver Ralf, Aron progressed from a successful karting career to single-seaters with Prema, racing in Italian and ADAC F4 before moving up to the Formula Renault Eurocup and then the Formula Regional European Championship, where he finished third in both 2021 and 2022. He continued with Prema in FIA Formula 3 in 2023, again placing third, before stepping up to FIA Formula 2 with Hitech in 2024, winning in Lusail and finishing third overall; he also debuted in Formula E with Envision and became Alpine's reserve F1 driver in 2025.

Despite having had a WRC world champion in Ott Tänak and other success in motorsports, there has yet to be a full starting F1 driver from here. Estonia's neighbor to the North, Finland, has had three F1 world champions down the years, in Keke Rosberg, Mika Häkkinen and Kimi Räikkönen.

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