I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Red Bull programme is about finding the very best driver available, and in the end promote him to their top dog team. When the guys signing the contracts, I'm fairly confident that it doesn't say anywhere on the contract ''if you sign here we'll guarantee you a seat in F1''. They give you money, cars and the opportunity to drive through the ranks in very expensive series. Red Bull is NOT a charity. In Gasly's case, he was WINLESS for 1000+ days, yet still Red Bull kept supporting him. Most other sponsors would've pulled out long ago. Gaining new ones when you haven't won a race in nearly 3 years? Good luck. Gasly did GP2 last year and didn't score a single win, he finished 8th overal. In all honesty he should've been doing better this year than he is, but top dog in GP2 is a rookie right now, so that's working against him massively. They let Gasly take the 3 day test a few weeks back to get some more F1 data on him. Presumably they sat round a table and figured Kvyat is a better bet for more points than Gasly at this point. Kids these days are struggling massively to get enough $ for a GP2 drive (or other series). It's extremely expensive. No one put a gun to their head and told them to sign here, Red Bull threw them a lifeline and basically guarantees them to stop worrying about finding sponsors, but get on with concentrating on racing 100%, and a pretty safe guarantee they'll get support for multiple seasons. Had Gasly (or others) not signed, would they still be in GP2? Or would they be in Formula E, or a last ditch effort at F3 open (old F3 cars, budget series), or teaching privateers and hoping for a drive in GT3 as the pro sidekick? Red Bull throws MILLIONS at drivers like this in order to find the best one. Once you get to STR keep fighting, and if you're good enough you either get promoted within the team to the top seat at RBR, and if not, you better hope you're good enough that others have seen your talents and adopt you. These kids aren't stupid. They full well know that there's only 4 Red Bull seats in F1, they know how rare it is for a spot to open up, and even rarer that one opens up in the top team. They're also fully aware that F1 in total only has 22 seats, and signing a contract with Red Bull to gain support through the ranks doesn't guarantee you one. But, even if they're not good enough for F1 (or a set of circumstances leads them to no seats opening), they stand a very good chance of making a living out of racing cars...If they fend for themselves and are NOT successful in finding enough sponsors to even go through the lower ranks (a very real possibility affecting plenty of quick kids), they'll sit behind their office desk thinking ''what if''. And hope they have a better set of brains so they can one day fund their own GT3/LMP2 career. I'm sick of people trying to make Red Bull the villain in all this.
A contract with Red Bull is like selling your soul: they can get you to the top quick or destroy you if they please. Everybody knows the rules and you have to agree with them if you want to play.
Daniel and Max are on the Sofa Talking all Things F1 (2016 Review) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZI9a0sivBU
