McLaren doesn't want to make same mistakes with juniors as Mercedes and Red Bull

All of the big Formula 1 teams have set up a junior programme in recent years. Renault and McLaren already did this at the end of the 1990s and Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes are now also known for it. The latter two recently got themselves into difficulties. Something McLaren is trying to prevent.

Mercedes has no seat

The junior programmes of Mercedes and Red Bull show that things can go wrong with youth training in two opposite ways. At Mercedes, they have a strong driver in George Russell who is now forced to drive around in the backfield for years.

The other talents of Mercedes drive in Formula E. Something that was probably not on their wish list a few years ago. So they employ too many young drivers with little chance of actually getting ahead of the F1 team. So they will be kept on the line for years.

Red Bull has no drivers

Red Bull has another problem. In the last ten years, only a few juniors have been able to meet their high standards. This has created the situation that they were unable to find a suitable replacement for Alexander Albon within their own junior programme.

Zak Brown explains to Autosport.com why this will not happen soon at McLaren. "We have a different philosophy. I think we are more strategic, as we were with Lando, who we found early on. We just hand-picked a few when you just see they might mature at a time when you might have a seat available."

"I think you do run into the problem that the others have, where they have too many drivers and they start trying to place them with other teams, or they don't have a seat available when their driver is ready to be available", Brown said.