At the start of the year, the Red Bull Young Driver programme seemed to be in a state of turmoil. Carlos Sainz went for the exit, Brendon Hartley was shown the way out, none of the junior drivers contracted to Red Bull were ripe enough and Pierre Gasly had to be moved upwards to the main team to replace Daniel Ricciardo. This left Helmut Marko and Toro Rosso scratching their heads – you need to sign someone to drive the car; it doesn’t drive itself (at least for now)!
Trouble for the Red Bulls
While many non-Red Bull drivers made frantic attempts to be the cure of Toro Rosso’s unconventional problem, the age-old no outsiders rule at the Red Bull camp prevailed. In the end, the team had to make some truly desperate, last minute signings in the form of Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon, both of whom had been picked up dropped by Red Bull at some point of their career. This put a massive stain of the Red Bull Young Driver Academy’s rather spotless canvas. The team had to sign up two drivers that they once adjudged to be not good enough for them. How could they have made such a critical error?
For 2019, Toro Rosso signed two drivers that the Red Bull Junior Team had once dropped – Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat
For a certain period of time, it did make Red Bull look a bit ignorant and embarrassed. A drowning image can always be expected when you go back and accept a big error for all to see. The junior team was stuck in exactly this sort of scenario half a year ago. Although the decisions to get Albon and Kvyat look to be inspired. Red Bull have realized that they do need a fresh inflow of young drivers to solve problems like these and instead of constructing a solution, they have simply gone to the driver market and found their man.
The Mexican Wave
Enter Patricio O’Ward – the 20 year-old prodigy from Mexico who has been taking motorsport on the other side of the pond by storm. A champion of the 2018 Indy Lights Championship, the Weathertech Sportscar Championship and the North American Endurance Cup, O’Ward has surely proven to many that he has what it takes to win anywhere, regardless of his age. For 2019, he is contracted to the Carlin Indycar Team to participate for them in select races and his performances have made him a hot property in American motorsport along with fellow youngster Colton Herta.
O’Ward has been a revelation in the Americas
While Herta holds the record of being the youngest ever Indycar pole sitter and race winner, what he doesn’t have is a contract with a big outfit in Europe that can lead him to Formula One. O’Ward’s performances and commercial viability in North America have earned him the latter and rightfully so. Now, O’Ward has finally crossed the pond to compete in this season’s F2 race in Austria for MP Motorsport and we may soon see what he’s made of on the global stage. The rumour is that the young Mexican already has enough Super License points to get into F1, something that hampered another Red Bull youngster earlier this season.
Where the problem arises
The other youngster in question is Daniel Ticktum; a multiple-time Macau GP winner and the recipient of the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Award. Currently racing in the Japanese Super Formula Championship, Ticktum seemed to be the natural choice for Toro Rosso after Gasly was promoted to Red Bull – the FIA Super License system however, thought otherwise.
Not too long ago, Dan Ticktum seemed to be Red Bull’s knight in shining armour
He may not have enough points now, but Ticktum is surely among the select few expected to be in F1 in the very near future, a group which includes the likes of Mick Schumacher, Nyck De Vries and crucially in this case, Patricio O’Ward. If they wished to, Red Bull could just bring O’Ward in at Toro Rosso next season but with Albon and Kvyat working wonders at the team, would it be fair to drop any of them just to fast track the promotion of a new signing?
If they perform in the way that they have been so far, Red Bull’s existing quartet of F1 drivers are bound to stay in F1 with either of the two Red Bull teams. Gasly could very well be demoted and Kvyat with his experience would be an unlikely but, smart choice. Yet, you can tell by the way that they have been driving that this existing lot will retain their seats and that gives birth to a massive problem for the Red Bull driver academy – where do they accommodate Patricio O’Ward and Dan Ticktum?
It will be interesting to see how Red Bull accommodate O’Ward
Red Bull’s history of dealing with youngsters
It is a good problem to have and it is a problem that Red Bull have dealt with previously. However, the consequences were barely rosy – Buemi, Vergne and Algesuari were all given the boot for younger talent and all of them eventually had a go at Formula E, with only the latter not being a Formula E World Champion. Brendon Hartley was also a part of the driver programme but he was left into the obscurity of Endurance Racing where he did well but never quite reached the heights that many predicted him to. Hartley did eventually get into F1; a move that seemed to be out of Toro Rosso’s desperacy.
What the future holds for O’Ward and the Junior Team
You wouldn’t want to see the same happening with this crop of youngsters that Red Bull have got with them. It would be a shame to see the likes of Patricio O’Ward and Dan Ticktum not reaching their potential. That is a looming threat unless Red Bull find a way to get them in at the right place at the right time. How they manage to do that is one of their major worries for the near future but until then, we can simply sit back, relax and enjoy watching Red Bull’s youngsters show their quality on the racetrack.
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