Why can’t Red Bull find an adequate second driver?

Red Bull’s got a massive problem. Since last year’s British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen has bagged a world championship, several race wins, many more podiums and 353 points. In that time the second car has scored… 40. That’s disastrous.

And aside from Max never having a wingman, it also means the team is effectively fighting for the constructors’ championship with one hand tied behind its back. Like a gladiator going into battle with a bludgeon in one hand and a damp cotton bud in the other.

It’s not a new problem either. Since Daniel Ricciardo left the team in 2018, Verstappen has made a string of promising youngsters look bang average. Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Liam Lawson and now Yuki Tsunoda have all been steamrollered by the Red Bull x Verstappen freight train.

Even outside hire Sergio Perez – a race winner and tyre whisperer who’d spent most of his career nabbing podiums in midfield cars that didn’t deserve them – was resoundingly crushed. No wonder everyone thinks the seat is cursed.

So has the Red Bull young driver programme failed? Laurent Mekies, team principal of the Racing Bulls junior squad, doesn’t think so: “I look at the F2 and F3 races and there is Red Bull drivers winning every weekend,” he says. “I look at Yuki in Formula 1 now in Red Bull Racing. I look at Isack [Hadjar] being the new sensation.

“You can't find a Max Verstappen every year. Before Max, Sebastian won four titles. Max won four titles. In the meantime you have a pipeline of guys and Daniel [Ricciardo] in the middle of it. I'm not sure you could have done much more, you know?

“So I think the programme is working well. Let me put it this way: when Red Bull Racing has a driver need, if they are able to rely on the programme to fill that need, it means the programme is working. If they are not able to rely on the programme, then it means we should probably do a better job.”

He has a point. Albon has found a new home at Williams and his reputation has soared; Gasly won the Italian Grand Prix after being spat out by Red Bull and is now a solid runner at Alpine; Carlos Sainz (Verstappen’s first teammate, don’t forget) was deemed worthy of Ferrari and won four grands prix in red. Why Red Bull made no attempt to bring him back for 2025 is mildly baffling.

Lawson is the most recent case of being thrown in at the deep end long before he was ready for it. Rather than get a season or four to learn the ropes, the New Zealander had just 11 races of prep (over two separate campaigns) before being promoted to the big time. The outcome? His first and last races for Red Bull were just seven days apart.

His record went like this: qualified P18, crashed; qualified last, sprint race P14; qualified last, P12. And then it was all brought to an end with a (presumably quite awkward) phone call.

Mekies doesn’t consider that a win, right? “No, this is not success,” he agrees. “I think none of us anticipated the difficulties that Liam would get over there.”

But that doesn’t mean Liam might not come good in the future, he argues, and the fact RB had two drivers on the roster who were at least worth a shot should count in the team’s favour, he reckons.

Again, he has a point. After taking his time to recover from such a tough chapter, Lawson finished a career-best P6 in Austria last weekend and with both him and the immensely likable Hadjar scoring decent points lately, the VCARB satellite is right where the mothership wants it – at the sunnier end of the midfield battle.

But back to that first question: why can’t Red Bull find a driver who can get remotely close Verstappen? If any number of hotshoes end up looking like rank amateurs at Red Bull then the culprit must be… the car.

Red Bull’s cars are typically oversteer-y, making the rear end extremely sensitive. Verstappen has genius-level ability to deal with this type of setup, and make it fast. He might be the only driver in the world who can do it.

But if you need a once-in-a-generation talent to make your car work… you’re going to get found out, aren’t you?

Red Bull is arguably facing the music already: it lost Adrian Newey last year and its pace has dived dramatically since. Next year it will build its own engine (with some help from Ford) for the very first time, and you only need to pump ‘Honda Alonso GP2’ into the YouTube search bar to see how crippling a duff power unit can be.

And with Max Verstappen leaving for Mercedes a real possibility, Red Bull could – we repeat, could – genuinely find itself near the back of the grid next year. Which would be some fall from its almost undefeated season in 2023.

The team needs some back-up geniuses, and soon. And Peter Bayer, Racing Bulls’ CEO, has an idea of where to look. “One of the things we are currently discussing – and which I know Helmut Marko ultimately is responsible for – is whether we have to extend into the world of karting which, so far, Red Bull has not done strategically.

“What you're seeing now when you go into a kart track, you'll have a Williams representative, an Alpine representative, Mercedes has a representative, and they're signing kids at the age of 10, 11, 12 years old. Ferrari, I think now also is reaching out into that world.

“It’s something we need to look at. Otherwise you'll end up with F4 as your entry point, and you might be too late. Because you miss out on a talent, or you have to buy a talent out from another squad.”

There’s a lesson, boys and girls: find the most oversteer-y go-kart you can get your hands on and don’t come in for tea until you can slide it in your sleep. Then give Racing Bulls a call.