Love triangle of Red Bull
Some years ago, Red Bull was famous for their talent to find incredibly fast and gifted drivers. However, in recent years, this team is known for constant castling and changing of drivers stuff every season. And now another replacement is expected again.
Red Bull is the current third team in Constructors Cup of the championship. A risky step to cooperate with Honda is quite successful so far: 137 points in the standings, two podiums and only one DNF.
However, Red Bull again faces its already familiar problem in recent seasons – drivers. Last year, the team had two super strong and super ambitious drivers, so fast and strong that they literally couldn't exist next to each other. Conversely, this season Red Bull performs in races by one car.
The big brother
Max Verstappen: super season, super results. After Daniel Ricciardo left the team, the role of team leader finally passed to Max, and every weekend he demonstrates that he really deserves it and perfectly copes with his new task. Obviously now Max has the best season in his Formula 1 career.
It’s fair to say that now Red Bull is represented in the races by only one car – Verstappen's car. In Mercedes Bottas helps Hamilton to provide the team with 1-2 finishes, and in Ferrari Sebastian and Charles alternately get the poles in qualifying, the podiums and win the races (almost). And in Red Bull only Max Verstappen is capable to fight for the points.
The best result during the season for Max was P3, and he got it even twice: in Australia and Spain. In most cases, the Dutch finishes right behind the top three, in 4th place. Thanks to the efforts, Max is already gaining 100 points in the standings, and 11 points behind Sebastian Vettel.
The upcoming Austrian Grand Prix may be another triumph for Max. The last three seasons Red Bull drivers, especially Verstappen, looked very good at this track: in 2016, Max took the 2nd place at the Austrian Grand Prix; in 2017, Daniel Ricciardo finished the race on the podium, in 3rd place.
Last year Max won the Austrian race. Due to the fact that now Ferrari is in a weak form, which we clearly saw in France, and it's also clear that they won't have time to solve all the problems to the next Grand Prix, which kicks off in a few days, Max has a good chance again to fight for the podium and to bring to the team valuable points. Especially, as Ferrari is 61 points ahead of Red Bull, which actually isn't a big gap. However, it's difficult to single-handedly lead the team to the second place in the standings for Max, because Pierre Gasly obviously still isn't able to help him with it.
Another victim of Marko's decisions
A surprisingly weak start of the season in a top team of Pierre Gasly. Let's remember what successes the Frenchman had at the same time last year. Phenomenal 4th place in Bahrain, 18 points in total, and two finishes in P11, and all of this with Toro Rosso car. Now he has really competitive car, no problem with the engine, but still can’t show the same result as teammate does. It’s seems like Helmut Marko broke the career of another Red Bull program participant again.
Otherwise, how it can be explained such a sharp decline of Gasly's performances? Of course, Pierre is a very talented driver and obviously he couldn't lose his natural speed during the winter break. Therefore, perhaps the heads of the team should reconsider its approach to the selection of drivers, after all at the moment this is their only serious problem.
Possible return of Russian torpedo
Already for several stages there are many rumors in the paddock about possible and very soon return of the Russian driver Daniil Kvyat to Red Bull. Daniil and the team have a very complex history of their relationships: they had great successes like two podiums, also they had strong disappointments like dismissal of Daniil from the team, moving to Toro Rosso, and then completely excluded from Red Bull program. However, it seems that these two really love each other, and fate is ready to give them one more chance.
The other day, the principal of the Toro Rosso Franz Tost made an interesting statement, saying that Kvyat is a Red Bull driver and is rented by Toro Rosso. Moreover, Tost claims that he would like to see Daniil's return to the top team, as this season the driver really deserves it. In addition, rumors have been fuelled by news about a recent meeting of Helmut Marko with Kvyat's manager Nicolas Todt. They say the Russian may join Red Bull during the season, after the summer break.
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