Surprised it wasnt Kyvatt tbh tho I guess Gasley needs someone to guide him on how to take **** Dont they mean 1 talented and 3 also rans? Lets face it Albon wouldnt be getting the Red Bull seat at this point if they had any other option. He's only got it as Kyvatt has already drunk from the poison chalice and failed and Gasley has had his fill. The next question is, what if Albon doesnt perform? Kyvatt has a go or will silly season take a new turn? Are Ocon/Grosjean/K-Mag/Bottas/Perez/Hulkenberg in the running for the Red Bull and 2 TR seats next year?
Surprised it wasn't Kvyatt but I guess as he wasn't as good as Ricciardo, they might as well take a punt on Albon to see if hes got at least 90% of Verstappen's ability.
I reckon if Albon doesn't meet expectations, Bottas has a good "option B" on the table. He's shown that he can leave more space than needed when duelling his teammate, and that he'd rather get out of the way than collide with such a teammate. K-Mag would IMHO not be a good fit for RBR - he's too harsh when racing, and not above touching teammates. Grosjean is too inconsistent. Ocon - well, Merc would have to let him go... and that just aint happening - not to RBR, at least.
So did RBR say no to Kvyat, or did Kvyat say nyet to RBR [because of what happened last time] I wonder.
Ocon would likely be slotted into Merc if Bottas leaves, or Williams if/when Robert leaves. Odds on we will loose one of the HAAS drivers possibly one ending up at Alfa if Antonio leaves.
Methinks a bit of both. Kvyat has (as it was eloquently put earlier) had a sip of the poison chalice before. Pretty sure he didn't want it again, and that RBR wouldn't want to lose face like that either. Besides, we know that RBR has to prove that their "young driver programme" works (which everybody already knows it doesn't - wasn't DannyRic the only true blood RBR driver?)
Seb & Max both 'graduated from STR'... iirc. It does seem that seat two at RBR isn't a good prospect for many that take it - who did Max play 2nd fiddle to, before he got the headline seat?.
It 'works' in that it often gets the driver into F1... whereupon the driver gets sick of marko's **** and rage quit to join to another series, or RBR throw them under the bus and they decamp to another series. IIRC Seb wasn't officially a 'Red Bull Young Driver Program' sprog. Pretty sure Verstappen wasn't either, he was in more of a 'give Max a drive or Jos will kick your teeth in' program.
Vettel was sponsored by Red Bull seemingly since year dot, although when they first picked him up their wasn't a 'Young Driver Program' as such. At least this time Gasly was actually under performing, although with Albon in the car if he goes no faster it will only affirm my suspicion that RB number 2 is in reality STR number 1.
IIRC It was BMW that got Vettel his drive in F1 rather than RBR. RBR went 'thanks very much, we'll take him now', once he'd shown a bit of speed.
Seb started F1 as Williams Test Driver (2005). He then went to Sauber as Test Driver in 2006, had 8 races in 2007; the latter 7 were with STR. Max started F1 as Test Driver for STR in 2014.
Well, consider me surprised... This will be a massive psychological blow to Gasly - he knows (or at least, SHOULD know) that you only get promoted to RBR once, so he isn't going to be in a top seat ever again. The issue he has is now proving himself against Kvyat - who has already gone through the mid-season demotion meltdown. If he doesn't hold his own at STR, he will be gone properly at the end of the season. RBR need to really look at options for next year... Maybe they will be really brave and sign Chadwick up for STR? Be big news and lots of good press for the team (and sport), and if she doesn't perform, she'll just be another failed RBR YDP experiment.
STR drivers have been pretty matched. In all the various combos I dont think one won outright or compketely ran away with it. Hartley excluded as he was awful. That red bull 2nd seat has had some very good drivers in it, Riccardo and to an extent Kyvatt outperformed comtinued to improve compared to their season at TR. The biggest issue is all have been treated like crap rather than encouraged. Some eventually collapse, the rest run to a better life. I would love to see how Sainz would have faired or even some of the FE drivers who were axed. I bet some if not all would have outperformed golden boy Vettel
RB sponsored him in the juniors (with Honda engines no less) and got him that test drive. At the time their junior program wasn't the conveyor belt it is now, IIRC it was him and Brendon Hartley and that was about it. Seen here with a couple of Mercedes junior drivers in 2005, wonder what happened to the guy in the middle...
On the one hand he might be kicking himself, on the other - what does it say about you when drivers would happily leave you for a 'worse' team [Sainz -> McRenault, D-Ric -> Renault].
He's getting paid more in one season at Renault than RB paid him in five years, including win bonuses, I'm sure he'll cope.
We know what happened to him... what actually happened to the guy on the far right (one Adrian Sutil)...?
I guarantee Daniel would give up 90% of his salary (and still live better than all of us...) for another win. Heck, I would bet he'd give up half his salary just to be comfortably leading the mid-field at this point. (I could be wrong, of course, I don't know the bloke)
