Red Bull academy is flourishing again, after years of drought and failed projects

The Red Bull training is flourishing again. In recent years, Red Bull's Formula 1 teams have mainly had to make do with juniors who aren't ready to make a step-up, but there is a light to be seen at the end of the tunnel.

The Red Bull training academy

Red Bull was involved with junior talent in Formula 1 much earlier than when they started with their own team. From the start, it has therefore been the goal to give those juniors a platform. Where it started with drivers such as Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi, talents such as Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Daniil Kvyat and Max Verstappen also came through. 

Nevertheless, the number of talents that could make the transfer has dried up in recent years. After Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen made their debut in 2015, only Pierre Gasly really came through from their own training. Brendon Hartley was called up out of nowhere, Kvyat had to come back anyway and Alexander Albon lost his seat after his first full year at Red Bull. 

With the arrival of Yuki Tsunoda, a talent from their own training will finally be put forward in 2021, although Tsunoda can be said to be more of a talent from Honda. Still, this is a sign that juniors can pass through at Red Bull again because after an enormous drought there is an enormous wave coming.

End of the drought

For example, Liam Lawson, Jehan Daruvala and Juri Vips will have the chance in Formula 2 in 2021. Daruvala is 22 years old and probably no longer a realistic option for Formula 1, but Lawson and Vips are. Vips won in Formula 4, took the podium in Macau and made an impression on his debut in F2 in 2020.

The greatest talent really seems to be Liam Lawson, who will drive alongside Vips for Hitech in F2. Lawson already won the Toyota Racing Series and came second in the EuroFormula Open Championship, but made the biggest impression in Formula 3 last season, scoring more points on his own than his teammates put together. Hitech was not a good team at all, but Lawson still managed to win races with them.

The second line

However, that is not the only thing. Red Bull also have a lot of talent ready in the second line. For example, Dennis Hauger will get a second chance in Formula 3 where he did not perform very well in 2020, but ADAC F4 champion, Jonny Edgar, will also get his chance in Formula 3. The Brit has made a great impression in recent years.

Besides Hauger and Edgar, we also see Ayumu Iwasa and Jak Crawford back in Formula 3 for Red Bull. Iwasa won French Formula 4 on his debut in Europe, where the American Crawford came second behind Edgar in the ADAC F4 Championship.

Perez is the intermission

So Red Bull again has a huge list of talents, but also real talents that have already won something here and there. With Lawson, they have an outlier that could make his F1 debut for AlphaTauri in 2022, but across the board, there are drivers who, with the support of Red Bull, could look forward to a bright future.

Red Bull is doing well again. Sergio Perez was not called the interim solution for nothing. Red Bull actually wants its own trained drivers at AlphaTauri and Red Bull Racing but had to deal with a drought for a while. That drought now seems to be over and so Red Bull can start harvesting again, after the fantastic work of Helmut Marko.

This article was written and originally published by Tim on the Dutch edition of GPblog.com.