As many of us are aware, the Red Bull Junior Team is one of the top junior driver programs in the world of motorsport. Many of motorsport’s most successful and well known drivers have been members of the junior team at one point or another. Sebastian Vettel is a 4 time F1 World Champion, Sébastain Buemi is a race winner in several series as well as winning the World Endurance Championship title back in 2014, Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz Jr. are both race winners in F1 and of course there’s Max Verstappen as well, a 2 time World Champion.
But this year is a big one for the current members of the junior team. Liam Lawson is going to be taking part in the Super Formula Series, and hopefully wins the title! The big news however is the fact that 27% of the Formula 2 grid this year is composed of Red Bull Junior Drivers. That may not seem like a big percentage, but it’s the largest percentage out of all the junior teams. The 6 Red Bull Juniors this year are; Jak Crawford, Enzo Fittipaldi, Isack Hadjar, Dennis Hauger, Ayumu Iwasa, and Zane Maloney. 3 of these drivers are rookies and 3 of these drivers are not. This gives Red Bull an incredible opportunity to have a driver take the championship and a rookie to hopefully be the rookie of the year. Many of these drivers are very well accomplished, with Dennis Hauger winning the F3 championship back in 2021. Enzo Fittipaldi who is the newest member of the junior team, took the F2 world by storm last year with some absolutely superb driving. He had some incredible drives, the most standout being in Imola last year during the Feature Race. He started P15 and overtook 13 cars to take P2. He had 6 podium finishes last season and 15 top 10 finishes. Out of 26 races! That’s almost 58% of the races in the top 10. He finished the season in 8th and is definitely a driver to keep an eye on this season.
So, do you think the Red Bull junior team will be taking F2 by storm this year? I sure hope so!
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