Helmut Marko hits out at rival F1 teams for being ‘afraid of junior drivers’

Red Bull F1 advisor Helmut Marko has hit out at rival teams for not giving young drivers more opportunities.

Marko has been in charge of Red Bull’s young driver programme for well over a decade.

He was responsible for bringing Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen into F1, similarly with the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon.

Writing in his column for Speedweek, Marko criticised rival F1 teams - and some current drivers on the F1 grid, without directly naming any.

“With Oliver Bearman, he was in the right place at the right time and will move up to Formula 1 next year,” Marko wrote. 

“His race in the Ferrari has shown him his F1 future, but if you were to look at his Formula 2 results, things would look a lot worse for him. But it's good that young people are coming into Formula 1, I'm absolutely in favour of that."

“I can't name any names, but there are drivers in the field who stagnate and are a bit better or worse depending on their mood. 

“They block the way for the young drivers. The teams are also afraid of juniors. Of course, they make mistakes, but I'd rather someone makes mistakes and is a hope for the future than there is no more improvement.”

In terms of Red Bull, they have Liam Lawson waiting in the wings, while Isack Hadjar has impressed in F2.

In F3, Arvid Lindblad sits six points off the lead following the latest round at Silverstone.

Marko has revealed he will use the summer break to “analyse” the performance of the Red Bull juniors.

“During the summer break, we will also analyse and evaluate the performance of the Red Bull juniors in more detail,” Marko added.

“Hadjar took the lead in the F2 standings with his victory in the feature at Silverstone, we mustn't forget that he was unlucky several times, there was the engine failure, then the reserve engine that didn't work and then the two fuel supply failures and twice he was also spun out through no fault of his own.

“Otherwise he would have been miles ahead in the championship. Lindblad shone in Formula 3, having stepped up directly from Formula 4 to Formula 3 as a rookie and winning both races. He is only 16 years old and we are delighted that you can now drive Formula 1 again at 17.

“But we're staying calm and continuing to produce good results with our juniors, who are now enjoying more priority again and are also allowed to drive Formula 1 cars.  Isack did well in his most recent test, he never had the soft tyres on the car, but he showed strong performances.

“Isack and Arvid have extremely good qualities, they are super fast and have Formula 1 quality. We mustn't forget Ayumu Iwasa either, who is currently in second place in the Super Formula in Japan.”