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Helmut Marko once made ‘mental’ decision to find out whether two Red Bull drivers were ‘good enough’ for F1

Red Bull have had incredible success with their junior academy, guiding Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to multiple world championships.

The Austrian team have had a lot of their young drivers in Formula 1 with varying levels of success. Carlos Sainz got into F1 with Toro Rosso and won with Ferrari.

Others, such as Scott Speed who had a short spell in F1 despite Red Bull having confidence he could challenge for world championships, stayed for a year and a half.

More recently, Daniil Kvyat performed well at Red Bull alongside Daniel Ricciardo but made errors and was replaced by Verstappen ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix in 2016.

Some Red Bull juniors like Antonio Felix da Costa never made it to F1. Mark Gallagher explained on the Flat Chat podcast that Helmut Marko has made some odd decisions while overseeing the academy.

Helmut Marko made Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi share a drive at Red Bull

Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Consultant Dr Helmut Marko walks in the Paddock prior to the Sprint ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo J...
Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Marko has made some tough decisions during his time at Red Bull such as dropping Pierre Gasly midway through the 2019 season when he failed to match Verstappen.

The Red Bull team were a midfield team when they took over Jaguar ahead of the 2005 season. They scored some points but only scored 34 points at a time when 10 points were awarded for a victory.

Red Bull were led by British driver David Coulthard who joined the team after a competitive spell at McLaren.

The other seat was much more unstable, with Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi sharing the drive initially over the season.

Klien competed in the first two Grand Prix weekends and returned in Canada after Liuzzi spent four races trying to prove himself in the car.

READ MORE: Helmut Marko reacts to whether Sergio Perez’s F1 seat is safe if Red Bull lose the championship

Gallagher explained the situation in 2005 at Red Bull made the season very complicated, and Marko knows quickly when a driver is good enough or not.

He said: “There have been some very, very strange things done right from the get-go, such as asking Tonio Liuzzi and Christian Klien to share the drive, race in, race out. I mean, it was just mental, that whole thing in terms of what they did to both of those guys. They didn’t give either of them a proper crack at it in those terms.

“But Dietrich Mateschitz and Helmut Marko were always of the view that if you give a driver an opportunity, if you give decent car and the right budget, you’ll know fairly quickly whether they’re any good or not.

“Then you can be brutal. If they’re not, if they’re not good enough, you drop them or you move them into another category.”

Instability in a driver line-up has caused issues at Red Bull

Red Bull have been successful in Formula 1, but they have also suffered with having competitive driver pairings.

Verstappen has dominated his teammates since Ricciardo left the team at the end of 2018 as Red Bull have struggled to find a replacement.

Gasly in particular struggled alongside the Dutchman as he finished one lap behind his teammate in Austria in 2019.

Despite winning four world championships from 2010-2013, Vettel and teammate Mark Webber had some fiery moments.

They crashed in Turkey in 2010 and had the infamous team orders saga in Malaysia three years later. This caused friction within the team before Webber left Red Bull at the end of 2013.

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