Franz Tost personally warned Red Bull flop that it was ‘far too early’ for him to race against Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen has been Red Bull’s star driver since Daniel Ricciardo left the team in 2018. Since then, none of his teammates have got close to him.

The four-time champion was promoted to the Milton Keynes-based outfit from Toro Rosso in 2016 to replace Daniil Kvyat. Verstappen established his talent immediately by winning on his debut at the Spanish GP.

The Dutchman mounted a serious challenge to Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull over the next few seasons. After being dissatisfied with the prospect of Honda joining the team, the Aussie left for Renault in 2019, having been beaten by Verstappen by 79 points the year prior.

Since then, the 27-year-old has been Red Bull’s top driver by some significant distance. He has dominated the ground-effect era, winning four consecutive titles and guiding Red Bull to two constructors’ championships.

Meanwhile, the second Red Bull has become something of a ‘poisoned chalice’, with no driver able to get used to the sensitive nature of the car. With Verstappen being clearly favoured, his teammates have desperately struggled to find consistent performance – Pierre Gasly was the first.

Franz Tost told Pierre Gasly it was ‘far too early’ to join Red Bull in 2019 – he went on to score only 55 points

The Frenchman joined F1 midway through 2017, replacing Carlos Sainz at Toro Rosso for the final five races in 2017. In his first full-time season the following year, he finished 16th with 29 points.

Despite being vastly inexperienced at that stage, Gasly was promoted to Red Bull to replace Ricciardo in 2019, where he would have a torrid time. Scoring 55 points from the first 12 races, he was demoted back to Toro Rosso, with Alex Albon replacing him.

The Thai driver would also struggle at Red Bull, collecting two podiums in a year-and-a-half before being dropped at the end of 2020. Speaking on the Inside Line F1 Podcast, former Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost personally warned Albon and Gasly that it was too soon to make the step up.

“It has nothing to do with the driving style. They came too early to Red Bull Racing,” said Tost.

“Albon was far too early, I said it to him: ‘It’s too early for him. He should stay another one, two years with us.’

“Look how fast he is now, he’s doing a fantastic job. Or Pierre Gssly, I said it to them: ‘Forget it, it will not work. Pierre is not ready for you.’

“As I said last year, Liam Lawson is not ready for you. He has not the experience and this was the reason why I was pushing for Yuki.

“Red Bull Racing needs an experienced driver in the situation where they are now because they have a world champion in there and beside a world champion, you don’t need a rookie. You need an experienced driver.”

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Will Yuki Tsunoda be the next to fail in the second Red Bull seat?

Red Bull vowed to keep Gasly in 2019 before they eventually dropped him. That should have stood as a warning for Albon’s replacement Sergio Perez, who would suffer the same fate in 2024.

The Mexican desperately struggled with the Red Bull machine in his four seasons with the team – failing to finish in the top five after Miami last season was the final straw.

Liam Lawson was called up to replace him after impressing at Racing Bulls, but it took just two races for the Kiwi driver to lose his seat in 2025. He failed to reach Q2 in those two Grand Prix as Lawson lost total confidence behind the scenes.

Now, Yuki Tsunoda has stepped into the second Red Bull seat and while he has been an improvement with Q3 appearances in Bahrain and Jeddah, the pace deficit to his teammate is alarming.

Jaime Alguersuari told Tsunoda to ‘wake up’ after he was almost a second off of Verstappen’s pole time in Saudi Arabia. With the car having clearly regressed from last year and the Japanese driver being out of contract in 2025, it points at another Red Bull driver facing the axe.