Yes I agree. He is completely right. It’s better to have a fast but wild driver and to then bring this unpolished diamond to shine. He should always go into the strongest category available and also where the biggest competition is.

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What Teams Look For

I explain the reasons why we can’t continue working together. We then still try to keep the connection with them, which worked well for example with Buemi, Da Costa, Brendon Hartley and many more. But in this sport only the best survive and most of the time the higher they get up the ladder they sometimes can’t cope with the increased responsibility after the junior programmes or haven’t progressed enough.

Through extraordinary performance in junior categories.

You should analyse where the reasons for that come from. Is it because of your environment, are you fully committed, do you understand the technical side? You have to make a strategic analysis and have to turn to someone within the sport if you are not that self-critical. But in most cases it’s in your head and has nothing to do with the techniques.

Determination, enthusiasm and the technical know-how to understand and get the maximum out of the car.

You are right, there are too many series, which cost too much money. But Gerhard Berger made a very important step when he created the Formula 4 and then Formula 3 championships to progress to after a karting career. These are series which are relatively cheap to drive in and also have a huge power density. If you are successful in these series (see Verstappen), you will automatically shift into the focus of teams and sponsors.

No.

Verstappen and Sainz are very different characters. Verstappen came straight from karting, to Formula 3 and then into Formula One. Sainz had a bad patch in GP3. That was their career direction. They both have the willpower to reach the highest level in their sport and they subordinate their whole lives to reach this goal. You have to have talent but also be willing to work hard. You need the mental strength, like Sainz, to get up after an unsuccessful year, recognize your errors and keep on working on them. And as you can see it worked!

We have a group of very good people who work mentally and physically with the drivers. And in special cases we sit and analyse how it came to the race result. Was it the attitude, a technical or mental problem which made the performance worse than expected. But we treat every single case separately and then tailor the actions to fit each driver.

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The Mental Edge

That’s always different as we don’t have the same amount of young talents each year. But the basic tendency for us is that no matter in which new category he drives in, he has to be in the front immediately.

Thank you, but luck also plays an important role as well as consistent work and a system which creates the necessary base, thanks to Red Bull, to give the drivers the right education from the start.

All our drivers are not being influenced in their personal development. Everyone should have their own character and features. The most important thing is success on the track. How someone then implements this, that’s a different story, which we don’t really influence. They don’t need any more sponsorship if they are with us and therefore we can solely focus on their competitiveness.

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Sponsorship: Where to Begin

Speed and determination.

If I could talk to drivers and friends I would prefer races from the past due to the atmosphere and also from a driving point of view – there was more engagement those days. As a driver you could balance out technical disadvantages. You can’t do this anymore these days. What I don’t want to have again is the immensely high risk we had when driving in the old days.

Yes they are too easy to drive. Just look at pictures from the 80’s and 90’s. When drivers left the cars after a race they were physically exhausted and you could still see the tension in their eyes. Nowadays drivers leave the car and look as if they just come back from a long stroll.

Generally I think that it’s possible and an example is that we gave Dean Stoneman a chance. We never had such an old junior driver before.

We choose drivers simply due to their speed. I think that the new super license system is not right, because the criteria simply don’t reflect a fair standard in the points allocation.

I’ll give you an example. When driving in Formula BMW, Vettel won 18 out of 20 races and was unhappy about that. This shows that he only strives for the absolute maximum and everything else is less important for him.

Go into Formula 4. That series is sometimes cheaper than karting and the technical circumstances are better than in karting.

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The Ladder System

You can only be sure, when the drivers sit in an F1 car. We might have a few focusing a seat, but I don’t want to mention any names at this point to avoid giving someone preference.