The two biggest Formula One driver changes in recent seasons have seen Lewis Hamilton quit McLaren-Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel choose to depart Red Bull Racing.
Compare the two and there is little doubt which of the two teams was better prepared to cope.
In late 2012, McLaren could be seen to have panicked in bringing in Sergio Perez to replace Hamilton for the 2013 season. Perez was dismissed within 12 months.
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In contrast, when Vettel announced he would depart Red Bull after this weekend’s Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the 2013 constructors’ champions also acted quickly, but did so within a clear framework and with a distinct plan.
For the first time since the Red Bull Young Driver Programme was founded in 2001, the two F1 teams owned by Red Bull GmbH are this season running drivers developed in-house.
With Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniil Kvyat, there is no doubting the conveyor belt of driver talent is in place. When Vettel announced he was leaving last month, Red Bull knew exactly where to look for his successor. Kvyat, of Russia, joined Toro Rosso at the start of this season yet will next year race for Red Bull – a meteoric rise for a 20-year-old rookie – and he knows whom to thank.
“The Junior Driver Programme was one of the key elements in me getting to Formula One because of all the help you get on a professional level, not to mention the financial side, too, of course,” Kvyat said.
Toro Rosso were founded in 2006 and, save for three development years between 2006 and 2008, the team’s purpose in the paddock has always been as clear as a visor: to prepare junior drivers for a seat at sister team Red Bull.
“It was a little bit different at the beginning,” said Franz Tost, who was handpicked by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz to be the team principal of Toro Rosso.
“The original idea was that Toro Rosso would be only a race team and we would use technology and parts from Red Bull Racing. That worked very well between 2006 and 2008, but in 2009 the regulations changed.”
With the new rules came a tweaking of the team’s objective and further focus was placed on developing youth.
Not since Sebastien Bourdais in 2008 has a driver older than 30 driven a Toro Rosso during a grand prix.
Bourdais partner that season was a 20-year-old rookie named Vettel and such was his impressive performances that when the year ended, the young German was promoted to Red Bull and Bourdais was given nine races to save his F1 career.
Bourdais was replaced six months later by Jaime Alguersuari, who at 19 years and 125 days became the youngest driver to start a grand prix.
“Many things changed in F1 and Sebastien [Bourdais] was a little bit a different story in those days, but we clarified everything and there is no doubting now that Toro Rosso is the place for young drivers,” Tost said.
“In terms of drivers, we are committed to educating young drivers from the Red Bull driver pool and if they are good and competitive they will go to Red Bull Racing.”
Since Bourdais’ departure, each of the five drivers to race for the marque made their F1 debuts for Toro Rosso and did so at age 22 or younger. Next March will see the team break all age records when Max Verstappen lines up on the grid in Australia.
Verstappen, who turned 17 in September, started racing single-seaters this season when he competed in the European Formula Three Championship. Yet having joined the Red Bull Junior Driver Programme in August, he has been selected to replace Vergne at Toro Rosso next year.
Effectively, Verstappen could be racing an F1 car before he can legally drive a road car to the circuit when he takes part in the opening practice session at Yas Marina Circuit on Friday.
“When you get a chance in F1 you have to take it,” he told Sky Sports.
“These days you don’t get too many. I have had contact with Red Bull since 2010 and since I was in F3 and did a good job there, we were talking more serious and about F1.”
Yet while rookie drivers such as Verstappen covet a seat at Red Bull’s junior team, it can often be as risky as it is rewarding.
Of the nine drivers who have raced for Toro Rosso since 2006, only one – Vitantonio Liuzzi – has secured an F1 seat after leaving the Red Bull family.
“Being part of the programme means you have to grow up very quickly because you are always under pressure to deliver good results or you’re out,” Kvyat said. “It’s a big gamble going from GP3 straight to Formula One, but I like a gamble because life without risk is not interesting.”
Tost is unapologetic when it comes to explaining Toro Rosso’s selection policy and insists “it has nothing to do with the age”.
“I know drivers who are 24 or 26 and they are simply too slow; I know drivers who are 17 or 18 and they are fast,” Tost said. “It is not a question of the age, but of the speed and the decision making.”
Toro Rosso employ from 370 to 420 staff at any given time and have a network of people keeping close tabs on junior drivers in several development categories.
Vergne, 24, the French driver who is set to be dropped for next season, is less convinced by Tost’s claims that age is irrelevant, but said he understands the team’s decision.
“In the end Toro Rosso is a team for young drivers and I’m too old,” Vergne said.
So, for drivers at Toro Rosso, it is all or nothing, but for the team itself there appears somewhat of a glass ceiling. If a driver shines – as Vettel did in winning the team their first and only race, in Italy in 2008 – he will be taken by Red Bull.
The same is evident with engineers and other race team staff.
Tost said that while Toro Rosso might be a stepping stone to the front of the grid, it does not mean the little sister cannot fight for position with their elder sibling.
“In Monza in 2008, we won the race and in that year we were ahead of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, so you must not get it mistaken, the racing is free,” he said.
“It is not that we can’t have a better position, but rather that the basis and ingredients of the two teams are a little bit different.
“Every medal has two sides: on one side, it is good when Red Bull take one of our guys because it confirms our work, but on the other side we lose an experienced, fast driver.”
For Red Bull owner Mateschitz, if the conveyor belt keeps churning out talent and his two teams continue to utilise it, the programme he set up in 2001 is perfectly positioned to cope with any driver issue that arises – even a four-time world champion announcing mid-season that he plans to quit.
gmeenaghan@thenational.ae
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