Red Bull ‘nursery’ questioned after Perez extension and ‘indispensable’ Verstappen factor

Michelle Foster 18 Jun 2024 12:00 PM

Logo illustration for Red Bull Racing.

Talking up Red Bull’s juniors on the back of Kacper Sztuka’s axing from the programme, Italian journalist Roberto Chinchero has questioned Helmut Marko’s driver strategy.

Formula 3 driver Sztuka took to social media over the weekend to announce he’d been cut from the Red Bull junior programme just seven months after joining following wins in Italian Formula 4 and Formula Winter Series.

Kacper Sztuka out of Red Bull’s junior programme, Isack Hadjar shines

“In recent weeks, the contract with Red Bull’s junior programme was terminated at the initiative of the partner,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Until the end of the cooperation, my starts, functioning in the team and the progress I made was positively assessed by all people working directly with me.”

That, though, wasn’t enough to save him and while he’ll continue with MP Motorsport, the 18-year-old faces an uncertain future in motor racing.

His axing comes just days after Red Bull motorsport advisor, Marko, the man in charge of the company’s junior programme, talked up Red Bull’s juniors in his Speedweek column.

He wrote: “Isack Hadjar is in second place overall in Formula 2, and this is only due to a lot of bad luck. We are talking about four retirements through no fault of his own, but he is still second in the table. Hadjar is in good form and is fulfilling our expectations.

“Pepe Marti, our second man in Formula 2, is in twelfth place. The Spaniard puts too much pressure on himself and makes mistakes, but that’s OK for a rookie.

“Arvid Lindblad is in fifth place in Formula 3, the 16-year-old Englishman came straight from Formula 4 to F3. He is constantly improving and is doing very well.

“Regarding our two Germans, Tim Tramnitz showed solid performances, coming seventh overall. Oliver Goethe was weak in qualifying, but was one of the strongest drivers in the races, showing great overtaking manoeuvres.”

More on Red Bull’s junior driver programme

?10 talented racing drivers you forgot were once Red Bull junior

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But following on from Red Bull’s decision not to promote a youngster alongside Max Verstappen for the 2025 season, not even giving RB driver Yuki Tsunoda a chance, Italian F1 journalist Chinchero has questioned the team’s young driver programme.

“Why do Helmut Marko and Christian Horner still focus on Checo?” he wrote in a Motorsport.com column.

“Is it possible that over the course of three and a half years, Red Bull’s nursery has not been able to present at least one candidate worthy of a chance?

“In the past, Helmut Marko was criticised for his very hard, sometimes cynical choices, a method that never offered a second chance.

“The interests of the team have always come first, at the expense of the careers of drivers who were not able to guarantee the team what it needed at the time.

“Many drivers still in Formula 1 have paid the price, from Carlos Sainz to Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon.

“With the arrival of Perez, a lot has changed due to an approach that strongly conflicts with what we have seen in the past and which can only raise other questions.”

Is the ‘indispensable’ Max Verstappen factor catching up on Red Bull?

Chinchero suspects Red Bull has made itself dependent on Verstappen, and now it is catching up with the team.

“There is a precise moment in which the change of direction took shape: the rise of Max Verstappen to the role of an indispensable factor for the team’s success. It can be dated to 2021, Perez’s first year in the team, as well as the season in which the Mexican played an important role in Max’s run towards his first title.

“But in reality, Max’s role within Red Bull had already grown considerably, the team had immediately grasped his potential and the awareness of having an increasingly less rough diamond in their hands led to a change in attitude.”

He added: “Today there is no plan ‘B’, and when in recent months Max hinted that it would not be the contract (expiring at the end of 2028) that would keep him in the team, many in Milton Keynes trembled. The nursery is barren, the only internal candidate for a Red Bull seat is Yuki Tsunoda.

“The new talents that have emerged in the last seven or eight years have not worn the uniform of the Red Bull Junior Team, for years the pride of Marko and the Austrian group. Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, and before them George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, were careful not to accept offers (which arrived promptly) from Marko.

“The idea of entering a Verstappen-centric system, in which the risk of being burned was a real possibility, convinced young people with more proposals on the table (usually the best ones) to look elsewhere.”