Max Verstappen’s record shattering rise has changed Formula One forever, but the man who helped give him his debut says the Dutchman has reshaped both ends of the racing pyramid.
Helmut Marko, famed as the godfather of Red Bull’s driver programme, is always on the lookout for the company’s next superstar driver. The Austrian played a pivotal role in making sure Verstappen made his F1 debut in 2015 wearing the colours of Red Bull junior team Toro Rosso (now RB), and not Mercedes.
Marko notices Verstappen’s legacy whenever he goes to a karting track to scout for the next generation of world beaters.
“People always say, ‘Oh, the Verstappen example,’ but it’s changed a lot,” Marko told ESPN about today’s emerging karting talent. “Now everyone believes ‘My son is the new Verstappen, I just have to follow the concept and it will go there.’
“Before Verstappen, when it was raining at the go-kart track, everyone went to the cafeteria. When Max first became a champion [in karting], everyone noticed when it rained there was only one driver outside: it was Verstappen.
“Now it’s the opposite. No one is in the cafeteria when it’s raining.”
Verstappen skipped both of F1’s then-feeder categories GP3 and GP2 (now Formula 3 and Formula 2), before making his debut with the Red Bull junior team. At the age of 17, he became F1’s youngest driver and the following season became its youngest winner. He turns 28 at the end of September and looks likely to round out the year with a fourth straight world championship.
He is a rare exception, though, one difficult to imitate.
“People believe they can do what Max did if they copy it, but we are not looking for a new Verstappen,” Marko said. “We are looking for a new world champion. We didn’t look when [Sebastian] Vettel left us for a new Vettel. We saw Max and immediately I thought, ‘That’s a guy we want to work with.’
“We made a calculation every year, at least 1,000 young drivers are starting in karting. If you are lucky, on average one goes to Formula One. Only if you are lucky. So you see selection is hard and very tough. The chances to make it is relatively slim.”
Despite the difficult odds, Red Bull has been the most prolific company at promoting young talent through the ranks up to F1. Verstappen followed in the footsteps of Vettel, who rose up the pyramid as a Red Bull junior driver to win four straight titles with the team. On the current grid, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly are all race-winning talents who owe their elevation to the programme Marko is so closely associated with.
Explaining the base criteria for signing a young driver, Marko said: “We want a driver who should be able to win a grand prix. Winning a grand prix is the goal, the aim, what we are looking for. [To win] a world championship, there has to be so many factors coming together.”
The game has changed significantly since Marko and Red Bull first started monitoring Verstappen and Vettel in their youths. Advances in technology have given teams more to go with, but Marko still prefers the old-school approach of trusting his instinct.
“The main difference is that nowadays you are acting more on data,” he said. “Before, you watched a driver outside on the track; some people could see the difference immediately, some couldn’t.
“For me, I am outside on the circuit watching these drivers. It is a difference when they are coming the first or second lap, how they can react. Their car control is something which I believe you can see immediately. With the data you know if they are driving for 20 or 40 laps, they all learn something, because they watch the data.
“But for me, it’s an immediate reaction the first time in the car is the important thing. It’s also important how they react in fast corners. A hairpin is a relatively simple thing, but in fast corners you see the differences.”
Another trend has altered the approach to finding new talent. F1 drivers have skewed younger and younger recently; the average age of the grid this year is 27.2, a number inflated slightly by the timeless pair of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. That change in demographic is reflected lower down the pyramid too.
Red Bull’s two newest addition to the academy reflect that fact; after a recent Red Bull Driver Search, the name given to a three-day event held at the Jerez circuit, the company added Irishman Fionn Mclaughlin, 15, and Swede Scott Lindblom, 14, to its driver academy. Those two stood out in a group of 10 drivers who were evaluated in Formula 4 cars over the three days.
Red Bull has followed that type of testing blueprint for years, but there are still no guarantees of longer-term success.
“As we are talking now, the age is becoming younger and younger,” Marko said. “We have people who are fantastic in go-kart, world champions in go-kart, who didn’t succeed in normal Formula cars. Then you go up. Some are successful in Formula 4, winning championships, then they go up to Formula 3 and they are not competitive anymore.
“Going through the formulas, there’s a natural selection. Some can cope with the different speeds, different G-forces, some can’t. Some take two years, or three years in a category, which for sure is too long for our goal to find a competitive F1 driver.”
There’s an example of this closer to home. Academy driver Dennis Hauger, who won Formula 3 in 2021, has had three underwhelming seasons in Formula 2 since; by contrast, Hauger’s fellow Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar is leading Formula 2 this year. Frenchman Hadjar might have to join a queue if he wants a seat with either of Red Bull’s teams soon, though — Liam Lawson, without a race seat in 2024 despite an impressive five-race stint in 2023, is still waiting for the company to decide on his future.
“We are always looking at the future,” Marko said. “How will it be in three years from now? Where will Ricciardo go? Where will Lawson go? Where will Hadjar be if he keeps going like that? If he does, we will have to look for a place for him in Formula One.”
Red Bull’s junior programme encountered a key moment in 2021 when the company signed Sergio Pérez from Racing Point to replace Alex Albon. Since Ricciardo’s departure in 2018, the company quickly cycled through Gasly and Albon and found themselves with no readymade F1 talent waiting in the wings. Pérez’s arrival was framed as a major departure from the philosophy, established by company founder Dietrich Mateschitz, of taking talent from within the company’s umbrella when possible. However, even with Pérez, there are Red Bull roots if you trace his career back far enough.
“‘Checo’ [Pérez] we know since a long time ago,” Marko said. “He was in a driver search down in Estoril … around 16 years ago. The fastest guy was Ricciardo, but in the long runs, ‘Checo’ was there as well. But he was a little bit off in qualifying. … In 2021 we had several juniors which failed to be next to Max … we knew him, he won races, so we went with him.”
Ironically, both Pérez and Ricciardo have made headlines this year due to the respective uncertainty around both of their Red Bull futures. Pérez was given a surprise vote of confidence during the summer break, but his spiral in form has blown this years’ constructors’ championship wide open, and he still appears to be on shaky ground. Ricciardo, who returned to the Red Bull programme as a potential Pérez replacement, has underwhelmed for RB this year.
Red Bull’s reluctance to promote its next best young talent, Yuki Tsunoda, has just added to the feeling that the company’s junior programme is not what it once was. This is another area where the game has changed too: Red Bull are no longer alone. Most of its rivals now have similar programmes, and they are emerging in a big way at the moment.
Mercedes looks set to promote hotshot junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who turns 18 on Aug. 25, to a race seat as Hamilton’s replacement next year. George Russell, famously signed to the Mercedes junior programme after showing company boss Toto Wolff a PowerPoint presentation, joined the team after a few developmental years on loan at Williams. Ferrari academy driver Oliver Bearman impressed in his debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and will have a full rookie season with Haas in 2025. Ferrari has already converted one academy driver, Charles Leclerc, into an established race winner.
Not every team has been so sensible in progressing their junior talent up the ladder. Alpine infamously dithered over the future of Oscar Piastri when he was part of its programme and he was snatched up by McLaren, who put him straight into a race seat in 2023. Piastri became an F1 race winner at the Hungarian Grand Prix last month. His teammate Lando Norris was signed by McLaren at a young age and elevated to a race seat at an early age as well, debuting in 2019, then just 19.
Despite rivals now making steps forward with young drivers, Marko still feels the best bet for any emerging talents remains Red Bull.
“Nearly every team now has a junior programme. Some of them make ridiculous financial offers, for example, and we say, ‘No, we won’t go into such a commitment.’ The big advantage of Red Bull is we have proved we bring young drivers into Formula One. We’ve made two world champions out of our programme. We are brave enough to put young drivers in.
“So it’s a difficult situation with others involved who are putting more money in than we do, but as Mr. Mateschitz always said when I discussed with him, we can’t have everybody. So Antonelli is a big talent and he’s not with us, he’s with Mercedes. It’s good if other teams are bringing young talent into the business as well.”
With the landscape completely altered and more options than ever for young drivers, Red Bull does not appear ready to completely overhaul its approach to recruitment just to stay ahead of the rest.
“We will stick to our system. Our financial terms, the contracts,” Marko said. “If they come nowadays they have managers, advisors, lawyers. Our system is working. We don’t change because your lawyer he has to do something for his money. Our contract since we started with the junior programme is the same, it’s just adjusted for social media stuff and all these legal things you have to put in the contract, but the basics are the same.”