Whereas it’s simple to be cynical concerning the up-or-out nature of Purple Bull’s younger driver programme and the scars its abruptness has usually left, no different enterprise has executed extra to advertise younger expertise in motorsport.
To assemble an exhaustive where-are-they now on paper of everybody who has been by the system would require one thing akin to the scale of a phone listing – if such issues existed any extra. So we’ve handed over those that by no means made it to F1 however succeeded elsewhere – the likes of Neel Jani, Antonio Felix da Costa, Filipe Albuquerque, Philipp Eng, Alex Lynn, Robert Wickens, and Callum Ilott.
We’ve additionally omitted those that had been however briefly a part of Purple Bull’s orbit – a listing which incorporates 2025 Alpine F1 driver Jack Doohan, together with Sky F1 pundit and buddy of Autosport Karun Chandhok…
Enrique Bernoldi
F1 2001-2002
Enrique Bernoldi
Picture by: James Bearne
You might not consider within the existence of a parallel universe by which Enrique Bernoldi was a world championship contender, however Dr Helmut Marko clearly did. Six seasons right into a title-sponsorship association with Purple Bull, Sauber turned down Bernoldi for 2001 in favour of a younger Finn who was the veteran of simply 23 automobile races. A hissy match ensued and Purple Bull’s schilling was transferred to the struggling Arrows workforce, the place Bernoldi partnered Jos Verstappen.
This inconvenienced Sauber not one jot for the reason that Finn in query, Kimi Raikkonen, made such an impression that McLaren and Mercedes purchased out his contract on the finish of the season. Sauber was so flush it may afford to construct a brand new wind tunnel.
Regardless of signing a three-year deal, Bernoldi grew to become a gentleman of leisure inside 18 months as Arrows ran in need of funds, culminating within the absurd scene on the French Grand Prix of each its drivers finishing only one gradual timed lap in qualifying – a contractual box-ticking train to indicate it was nonetheless taking part within the championship. No extra money entered the coffers and Arrows was by no means seen once more though its motorhome, manufacturing unit and automobiles would get pleasure from second lives in numerous colors.
Bernoldi was briefly tipped to hitch Jordan the next season as Purple Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz entered negotiations to purchase the workforce, however when that deal fell by Bernoldi was consigned to marking time in akin to World Sequence By Nissan earlier than he was dropped by Purple Bull. A 3-year test-driving gig with BAR-Honda led nowhere in F1 and he headed to GTs and his native Brazilian Inventory Automobiles by way of a quick dalliance with IndyCar.
Christian Klien
F1 2004-2006, 2010

Christian Klien leads David Coulthard
Picture by: Mark Capilitan
A younger Austrian expertise naturally generated pleasure inside the corridors of Purple Bull HQ in Fuschl am See, the bucolic lakeside city east of Salzburg, and, since Enrique Bernoldi was failing to make a splash in F1, Klien was fast-tracked by the junior formulae. He arrived in F1 in 2004 with however a smattering of race wins and one championship title, in German Components Renault.
Klien was partnered with Mark Webber at Jaguar Racing within the canine days of a workforce whose dad or mum firm was dying to rid itself of the entire shoddy enterprise. The wretched R5 automobile was good for under 10 factors that season, simply three of which had been scored by Klien in a Belgian GP the place simply 11 automobiles completed and Klien hit David Coulthard whereas defending his place.
That November, Purple Bull acquired Jaguar Racing’s belongings for the nominal determine of £1.
In a situation that might turn out to be acquainted to many Purple Bull juniors in future years, Klien was already ‘on watch’ by 2005, sharing the second seat alongside workforce chief Coulthard – awkward, given the occasions of Belgium ’04 – with one other Purple Bull protégé, Vitantonio Liuzzi. The RB1 automobile, a carry-over from Jaguar, was workmanlike at finest however Klien did sufficient to warrant being saved within the automobile for the rest of the season after a four-race handover to Liuzzi early on.
In opposition to widespread expectations Klien was retained for 2006. The Ferrari-powered RB2 was woeful – incoming technical director Adrian Newey ran an eye fixed over it, shuddered with revulsion, and retreated to his drafting board – and hypothesis mounted by the season that Klien was to get replaced; his response was to riposte that it was Coulthard, not he, who was below risk.
It should, due to this fact, have come as a shock when, after the Italian GP, Klien was offered with the selection of a funded Champ Automobile drive or the exit door. He selected the latter and was changed by check driver Robert Doornbos for a reported €15million.
It was an costly three-race cameo since Doornbos’s sponsor, Harry Muermans, later pursued him by the courts, claiming the cash was a mortgage quite than sponsorship. Klien gamely soldiered on in a holding sample by three seasons of test-driving jobs in F1 earlier than contesting three rounds in 2010 with the moribund Hispania outfit. GTs and WEC then beckoned.
Patrick Friesacher
F1 2005

Patrick Friesacher, Purple Bull Racing
Attend a observe day on the Purple Bull Ring and it’s possible you’ll be fortunate sufficient to get the personable Patrick Friesacher as an teacher. He’s an outlier on this record since he was dropped from the Purple Bull Junior Group earlier than reaching F1 however later rejoined the household – if not as considered one of its F1 hopefuls.
Friesacher graduated to F3000, F1’s assist class on the time, in 2001 with Helmut Marko’s workforce however, after three seasons with only one win to his identify, he was provided Components Nippon or out on the finish of 2003. He discovered his personal sponsors to proceed in F3000 the next season and began 11 grands prix with Minardi in 2005 earlier than his cash ran out and he was changed by Robert Doornbos.
A again damage throughout an A1GP check ended his single-seater profession however he made a quick return to the cockpit within the American Le Mans Sequence in 2008, and is a frequent sight on Purple Bull demo runs alongside his work on the Austrian circuit.
Vitantonio Liuzzi

Vitantonio Liuzzi leads Scott Pace, Scuderia Toro Rosso STR01-Cosworth
Picture by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Photos
F1 2005-2011
A type of baffling abilities who shone brightly in junior collection solely to flounder once they reached the highest desk, Vitantonio Liuzzi was backed by Purple Bull by F3000, which he dominated throughout a 2004 season with Christian Horner’s Arden workforce, successful seven of the ten races and solely ending off the rostrum as soon as.
By this level Liuzzi had already been talent-spotted by Williams. Late in 2001, aged 19, Liuzzi had crushed no much less an eminence than Michael Schumacher by virtually a minute in a kart race at Schumacher’s house observe in Kerpen. Among the many 5000-strong crowd was Jonathan Williams, son of Frank, and a 12 months later Liuzzi discovered himself testing a Williams F1 automobile after successful the karting world championship.
A four-race cameo for Purple Bull in 2005 presaged a full-time seat for 2006 when the comfortable drinks empire absorbed the ailing Minardi workforce and rebranded it Scuderia Toro Rosso. There he carved out a repute for being quick however vulnerable to errors; cynics noticed that he would fare higher if he spent much less time selecting trendy garments and stopped attempting to drive an F1 automobile like a go-kart.
In strutting across the paddock in his glad rags, although, Liuzzi was solely obeying orders from above to replicate Purple Bull’s hard-partying picture. Damned for those who do, damned for those who don’t.
Dr Marko’s finger quickly started to hover over the set off and Liuzzi discovered himself within the place of being fallacious on a regular basis, as evinced at Monaco when he was castigated for shunting at Massenet when in reality he’d been nudged off by David Coulthard.
By mid-2007 there was discuss that both Liuzzi or team-mate Scott Pace – or each – had been imminently to get replaced. This got here to move as Champ Automobile champion Sebastien Bourdais was introduced as one of many 2008 line-up that August and Pace was ejected in favour of Sebastian Vettel.
After 18 months out of F1 Liuzzi returned in late 2009, taking Giancarlo Fisichella’s Drive India seat when Fisi took over from the benighted Luca Badoer at Ferrari. At first of the 2011 season he was tipped as a potential substitute for the injured Robert Kubica at Renault however misplaced out to Nick Heidfeld; consigned to the walking-dead Hispania outfit, he vanished from F1 on the finish of the 12 months, contesting six extra seasons in an eclectic assortment of different classes.
He has subsequently acted as an FIA driver steward.
Scott Pace

Scott Pace, Toro Rosso STR02-Ferrari
Picture by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Photos
F1 2006-2007
Among the many extra obscure and forgotten threads of F1 historical past, hidden within the shadows of Red Bull Racing’s success, is that earlier than he purchased Jaguar Racing, Dietrich Mateschitz’s authentic plan was to arrange an explicitly American workforce – ideally with a US-born driver – the higher to promote caffeinated fizzy pop in a development promote it had solely entered within the mid-Nineties.
As a part of this, Mateschitz and Indy 500 winner – and someday F1 driver – Danny Sullivan launched the ‘Purple Bull Driver Search’ programme by which expertise scouts scoured the US single-seater racing scene. Scott Pace (together with future IndyCar stars AJ Allmendinger and Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Le Mans class winner Joey Hand) registered a outstanding ping on the radar.
Purple Bull funded a drive within the British F3 championship for 2003 however Pace’s season was disrupted when he developed ulcerative colitis, an disagreeable and incurable situation which might inconvenience him for the remainder of his profession.
Nonetheless, and regardless of Purple Bull abandoning plans to wave the Stars & Stripes, Pace acquitted himself properly sufficient to rise by GP2 and beat Neel Jani to the Scuderia Toro Rosso seat alongside Vitantonio Liuzzi for 2006. Working in a workforce with little prospect of ending within the high 10, not to mention successful races, sapped Pace’s enthusiasm and he would later admit that his motivation – and public manner – suffered.
The obvious signal of the simmering rancour got here on the 2007 European Grand Prix when each Toro Rosso drivers had been among the many many spinners into the gravel through the downpour that stopped the race. Afterwards Pace and workforce principal Franz Tost got here to blows within the pitlane, an alternate partially caught on TV.
Afterwards Pace advised workforce co-owner Gerhard Berger that if Tost “ever touches me once more, I’ll knock him out”. Regrettably for the viewing figures, maybe, there could be no televised rematch – Pace was dropped in favour of Sebastian Vettel from the subsequent spherical onwards.
Whereas Vettel was very a lot the approaching man in Purple Bull’s F1 imaginative and prescient, Mateschitz stepped in and organized for Pace to be supported by the NASCAR ladder. That resulted in 2010 when Pace was dropped shortly after agreeing a three-year contract extension, though this altercation was performed inside the relative decorum of the courts.
Since then Pace has raced in rallycross, barring a quick four-race look within the first Components E season.
Sebastian Vettel

Race winner Sebastian Vettel, Purple Bull Racing in parc ferme
Picture by: Daniel Kalisz
F1 2007-2022
The Purple Bull driver ladder’s first and largest win till Max Verstappen got here alongside – and the corporate was way more concerned within the early phases of Vettel’s profession, having talent-spotted him in karting. Vettel gained the Components BMW ADAC championship in 2005, was second to Paul di Resta in Euro F3 the next season whereas performing as BMW Sauber’s check driver in F1, and was main the Components Renault 3.5 championship in 2007 when he was known as up as momentary substitute for the injured Robert Kubica on the US GP.
There he caught the attention by turning into the youngest-ever driver to attain a degree, which led to him being fast-tracked to Toro Rosso, when Scott Pace was solid out three races later. There, the next 12 months, armed with a automobile which was the efficient clone of the Adrian Newey-designed Purple Bull RB4, he gained the Italian Grand Prix from pole place on what was a grotesquely moist and difficult weekend.
Promoted to the senior workforce for 2009, he gained 4 consecutive titles from 2010-13 and broke a number of information, together with Alberto Ascari’s successful streak. Blown off for probably the most half by new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in 2014, a season marred by an unreliable Renault hybrid energy unit, Vettel moved to Ferrari the place he loved a number of profitable years earlier than experiencing what can finest be described as a meltdown in 2019, when he was pushed onerous by newcomer Charles Leclerc.
Dropped by telephone name through the 2020 COVID lockdown, Vettel moved to Aston Martin, the place his newly found ardour for eco-activism rubbed workforce proprietor Lawrence Stroll up the fallacious approach. With out tangible outcomes he was given the heave-ho and retired on the finish of 2022.
Sebastien Buemi

Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso STR5 Ferrari
Picture by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Photos
F1 2009-2011
Swiss-born Sebastien Buemi was technically behind Michael Ammermueller within the Purple Bull queue however leapfrogged him after standing in efficiently when the German suffered a damaged scaphoid bone within the opening spherical of the 2007 GP2 season. Ammermueller returned to the cockpit for Magny-Cours and Silverstone however failed to attain and was then ‘rested’ till the top of the season, after which he was ejected from the programme.
Buemi grew to become Toro Rosso’s F1 check driver in 2008 and was promoted to a race seat the next season when Sebastian Vettel was elevated to the senior squad. He outqualified his new team-mate – the already-under-pressure Sebastien Bourdais – and scored factors within the opening spherical, however seventh in Melbourne could be his equal-best end result all 12 months.
Few outcomes of observe eventuated by 2010 and ’11, though Buemi achieved ‘meme’ standing when his entrance uprights underwent ‘speedy unscheduled disassembly’ through the 2010 Chinese language Grand Prix. Having accomplished three seasons with out convincing Helmut Marko he was worthy of additional promotion, Buemi was retained solely as check and reserve driver thereafter, dovetailing this with Components E and a profitable stint in sportscars with Toyota in WEC, which he gained in 2014, ’22 and ’23, together with 4 Le Mans victories.

Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, with Sergio Perez, Sauber
Picture by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Photos
F1 2009-2011
After successful the British F3 championship in 2008 (beating Sergio Perez, Oliver Turvey and Brendon Hartley), Alguersuari took some time to get into his stride in Components Renault 3.5 the next season. Irrespective of, although, for Helmut Marko was in axe-swinging mode, eradicating Brendon Hartley from Toro Rosso check driving duties mid-season after which relieving Sebastien Bourdais of his race seat.
Alguersuari, due to this fact, had barely added ‘F1 check driver’ to his Twitter bio when, on the age of 19 years, 4 months and three days, he grew to become the youngest-ever F1 race driver on the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. He scored no factors that season and simply 5 the next 12 months; and, whereas 2011’s statistics learn higher (26 factors), it wasn’t sufficient and each Alguersuari and team-mate Sebastien Buemi had been dropped from the line-up.
He returned to karting briefly earlier than reappearing in Components E, solely to abruptly name time on his racing profession in 2015. Since then he has centered on music, a longtime parallel occupation by which he goes below the identify DJ Squire.
Having returned to the karting scene in 2021, Alguersuari has additionally spoken out (to El Confidencial, a Spanish media outlet) about what he regards because the “trauma” of his F1 years, although he concedes he was “stuffed with ego and prickly”.
“I’ve executed remedy. After I retired a number of psychologists helped me. Now, even so, unusual issues come into my head. And typically get up, like, crying, having dreamed of getting executed a fantastic lap solely to see the face of Mr Marko, indignant.”
Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo, Purple Bull Racing, 2nd Place, on the rostrum along with his trophy and champagne
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Photos
F1 2011-2024
“Having a hungry teen on the books will hold our present driver pairing good and sharp.” With these phrases, asserting the arrival of Daniel Ricciardo as Toro Rosso check driver in 2011, Helmut Marko started tolling the bell for the F1 careers of Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari.
Picked up by Purple Bull for 2008 and positioned in Components Renault Eurocup, which he gained convincingly, Ricciardo gained British F3 in ’09 and was a runner-up in Components Renault 3.5 the next 12 months. These are exactly the type of marks a Purple Bull junior should tick to progress.
Halfway by 2011 Ricciardo bought race seat time as Purple Bull paid for him to exchange Narain Karthikeyan at HRT, an apparent prologue to him racing for Toro Rosso in 2012. Regardless of a middling couple of years the place doubts hovered over whether or not he was having fun with the life-style an excessive amount of, Ricciardo bought the nod over Jean-Eric Vergne to exchange Mark Webber in Purple Bull Racing for 2014.
There he very a lot exceeded expectations, successful three races and ending third within the championship in an underpowered, unreliable RB10, one of many least spectacular automobiles to emerge on Adrian Newey’s technical watch. He additionally contrived to make his four-time world champion team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, look quite extraordinary.
In 2015 he had the higher of latest team-mate Daniil Kvyat, much less so the person who changed him in 2016 – Max Verstappen. Rancour constructed, Ricciardo felt he wasn’t being given equal remedy, and he left to hitch Renault in 2019.
Observers felt he was merely cashing out by going to a workforce with such little aggressive hope. However, whereas Ricciardo’s model was seen as a diminishing one in racing circles, a brand new Netflix present depicting a largely fictionalised model of F1 enabled his shiny, brash character to realize traction because the viewers grew.
Nonetheless, a subsequent transfer to McLaren netted only one win and he was ousted in favour of fellow countryman Oscar Piastri for 2023. A short reappearance in Purple Bull’s second-string workforce, renamed AlphaTauri after which RB, dangled the potential of a top-team comeback because the organisation’s young-talent pipeline spluttered.
However it was to not be and he’s now a person of leisure.
Jean-Eric Vergne

Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso STR8
Picture by: Motorsport Photos
F1 2012-2014
British F3 champion in 2010, runner-up to fellow Purple Bull protégé Robert Wickens in Components Renault 3.5 in 2011, Jean-Eric Vergne bought an additional enhance by the ranks when Brendon Hartley was dropped from the junior workforce throughout 2010.
Like different younger drivers quickly promoted by the ranks by Purple Bull into an uncompetitive F1 automobile – the 2012 STR was a stinker – he struggled for motivation.
“If you’re a driver used to successful the whole lot in all the opposite classes,” he advised Autosport after being fined €25,000 for a unnecessary shunt on the European GP in 2012, “even when you realize you’re coming to F1 and that you simply may not win, that you simply will not get podiums and even that will probably be tough to attain factors, once you’re behind the grid – or for those who make a very good race and also you end it fairly far off – it’s in fact just a little bit tough for me.”
After finishing the seemingly statutory three years at Toro Rosso with out warranting promotion – the youthful Daniil Kvyat went to Purple Bull in Sebastian Vettel’s place for 2015 as a substitute – Vergne was dropped. A check driving and sim jockey position at Ferrari helped him hold his hand in for a few years however led to nothing in F1.
In Components E, although, Vergne discovered his metier, successful the championship twice alongside a choice of endurance racing gigs in WEC and ELMS.
Daniil Kvyat

Daniil Kvyat, Purple Bull Racing, second place
Picture by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Photos
F1 2014- 2020
One other a number of karting champion who tailored quickly to single-seaters – successful Components Renault 2.0 Alps and the GP3 Sequence in 2012-13 – was amongst that era of drivers within the 2010s who made it to F1 earlier than their twentieth birthdays. Making his F1 debut in 2014 offered him with challenges from the off, for the reason that problem in packaging the brand new hybrid-powered automobiles to the burden restrict pressured many drivers to shed kilos to remain aggressive – and the tall, gangly Kvyat had little room to manoeuvre in that regard.
He acquitted himself properly sufficient to earn promotion to the senior workforce in 2015 however a collection of high-profile accidents below strain earned him the nickname “the torpedo”. After crashing into Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari twice in his house grand prix, Kvyat was demoted again to Toro Rosso forward of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.
“The crash in Sochi is a consequence of the inner strain, which he has constructed himself, it didn’t come from us,” defined Helmut Marko.
His substitute, Max Verstappen, gained that very race. Kvyat’s profession by no means actually recovered from this wobble and he was changed by Pierre Gasly late in 2017.
After a 12 months on the sidelines as Ferrari’s sim jockey, Kvyat was recalled to Toro Rosso unexpectedly in 2019 when Gasly changed the Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo. New team-mate Alex Albon was then picked as opposed to Kvyat when Gasly was ejected late within the season.
On the finish of 2020 Kvyat was ushered out in favour of Yuki Tsunoda and has plied his commerce in WEC since, together with a few dalliances in US racing.
Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen, Purple Bull Racing, 1st place, celebrates on the rostrum
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Photos
F1 2015-present
Purple Bull can hardly be stated to have supported Max Verstappen from the earliest phases of his profession because it has with different drivers – it swooped in to beat Mercedes’ Toto Wolff in a bidding struggle halfway by the teen’s F3 season in 2014 – however it has been decided to maintain him.
On the time, Purple Bull’s F1 marketing campaign was in disarray whereas Mercedes was completely dominant. However Helmut Marko was capable of supply one thing Wolff couldn’t: a quick observe to F1.
Inside days of signing as much as Purple Bull, Verstappen was introduced as Toro Rosso’s check driver – and the race seat adopted. Max did his bit by excelling, whereas behind the scenes ‘Group Verstappen’ all the time ensured its man bought precedence in all enterprise.
This hasn’t all the time led to harmonious relationships with team-mates, however then once more neither has Max’s behavior of destroying them on observe.
In case you’ve been in a coma for the previous decade, Max is now defending his fourth world championship.

Carlos Sainz Jr., Scuderia Toro Rosso STR11
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
F1 2015-present
Signed to Purple Bull’s young-driver programme since his early Components BMW days in 2010, Sainz was elevated to F1 with Toro Rosso alongside Max Verstappen in 2015 after successful the Components Renault 3.5 championship. Two drivers with extremely aggressive racer fathers in attendance was by no means going to make for harmonious relations, and the Sainz household quickly grew to become discombobulated by what they believed to be the preferential remedy given to Max.
There was fury, too, when Max was promoted to Purple Bull’s senior workforce early in 2016 and Carlos was left in a holding sample.
By mid-2017 Sainz was publicly highlighting the truth that for many Toro Rosso drivers it was three-seasons-then-out. He then took the choice out of Purple Bull’s palms by signing for Renault and leaving.
He did only one full season with Renault earlier than leaving for McLaren, however it was throughout a four-season stint at Ferrari that he lastly grew to become a grand prix winner.
Brendon Hartley

Brendon Hartley, Scuderia Toro Rosso and Pierre Gasly, Scuderia Toro Rosso put together for the top of 12 months grid photograph
Picture by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Photos
F1 2017-2018
New Zealander Brendon Hartley’s Purple Bull profession is a peculiar saga. Aged 15, having gained the Toyota Racing Sequence, he and his father managed to pay money for Helmut Marko’s e mail deal with and pitched him for sponsorship. Hartley’s huge mop of blond hair and ‘sk8r boi’ type made him an ideal match for Purple Bull.
Europe beckoned and Hartley initially rewarded Purple Bull’s religion by exhibiting properly in Components Renault 2.0 and British F3, solely to fully lose momentum in Components Renault 3.5 in 2009 and 2010. The strain of racing in each FR 3.5 and Euro F3, whereas attending grands prix as Toro Rosso’s check driver, grew to become an excessive amount of.
Ejected from the Purple Bull programme, Hartley rebuilt his trajectory in sportscars – plus a simulator position with Mercedes – and gained Le Mans twice with Porsche. Come 2017, when Porsche introduced its withdrawal from the WEC, Hartley felt the time was proper to strive F1 once more – and Marko not solely took the telephone name, he stated sure.
Granted, Purple Bull/Toro Rosso’s choices for 2018 had been just a little skinny given Carlos Sainz’s surprising departure. Hartley changed Sainz for the final 4 rounds of 2017 and had a full season in 2018 however he by no means appeared snug within the automobile and was outscored by team-mate Pierre Gasly.
That was it for Hartley in Components 1 however three extra Le Mans victories – with Toyota – lay in his future. He’s now racing a Wayne Taylor-run Cadillac in IMSA.
Pierre Gasly

Pierre Gasly, Purple Bull Racing RB15
Picture by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Photos
F1 2017-present
One other driver arguably promoted too quickly, Pierre Gasly was already a Components Renault 2.0 champion when he joined the Purple Bull household on the age of 18 and completed runner-up to Carlos Sainz within the 2014 FR 3.5 championship. The GP2 title adopted in 2016 however, with no F1 seat instantly within the offing, Purple Bull positioned him in Tremendous Components for 2017.
Gasly was properly within the working to win that championship when Purple Bull had considered one of its summer time pivots and determined to drop Daniil Kvyat from Toro Rosso – to the extent that Kvyat was briefly invited again for the US spherical whereas Gasly went again to Japan.
Daniel Ricciardo’s sudden departure for Renault on the finish of 2018 created a emptiness within the high workforce however Gasly struggled with the strain and located the automobile a handful. He was demoted again to the junior workforce earlier than the top of 2019 in quite merciless circumstances – throughout his first week again at Toro Rosso, in Belgium, his childhood buddy Anthoine Hubert was killed through the F2 function race.
Though Gasly seized the second to take a shock (however completely deserved) win on the Italian GP in 2020, it grew to become more and more clear to him that he wasn’t in rivalry for any future vacancies at Purple Bull Racing, so he departed for Alpine on the finish of 2022.
Alex Albon

Alexander Albon, Purple Bull Racing
Picture by: Andrew Hone / Motorsport Photos
F1 2019-present
Few drivers epitomise the usually capricious nature of Purple Bull’s junior driver programme than Alex Albon. He was solely on it briefly – after reaching respectable ends in karts he joined the scheme in 2012, his first 12 months in automobile racing, solely to battle in Components Renault 2.0 Alps and Eurocup FR2.0.
On the finish of that season he acquired the decision from Dr Marko that he was now not a part of the programme. Aged simply 18, he was going to must make it another approach.
Remarkably, he did, finally making it to F2 the place he was a part of the well-known ‘Class of 2018’, ending third behind George Russell and Lando Norris. Since Toro Rosso was in need of expertise and the Purple Bull driver pipeline seemingly airlocked, as detailed above, Albon’s telephone duly buzzed to announce an incoming name from Marko – shortly after Alex had signed to race in Components E.
Albon determined in opposition to the world of glorified milk floats and grabbed his F1 alternative, however it was to be a bruising expertise – promoted to the highest workforce as Pierre Gasly was despatched the opposite approach, then demoted to check driver on the finish of 2020 when Purple Bull determined a extra skilled candidate with a harder conceal was the reply to its downside of discovering a associate for Max Verstappen.
He was additionally given a drive within the DTM however, on the finish of 2021, reached an association by which he may race for Williams in F1 whereas retaining publicly unspecified ties to Purple Bull.
Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda, Visa Money App RB F1 Group
Picture by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Photos
F1 2021-present
Honda’s tie-up with Purple Bull, introduced in mid-2018, made it politically expedient so as to add a Japanese driver to the Purple Bull younger driver programme, and Yuki Tsunoda was the apparent candidate. This furnished his progress from Japanese F4 to FIA F3 for the 2019 season and, regardless of an often irritating 2020 F2 season by which he finally completed third, he was promoted to AlphaTauri for 2021.
Helmut Marko supposedly stays a fan however Tsunoda’s trigger hasn’t been helped by questions over his health, consistency and temperament. He’s labored on them however not, it appears, sufficient to advantage being moved up on the earth.
After an unprecedented fourth season in Purple Bull’s second workforce he was leapfrogged for promotion by Liam Lawson. Given Honda will now not be the workforce’s engine associate from the top of this season, it’s make-or-break time.
On this article
Stuart Codling
Components 1
Sebastian Vettel
Carlos Sainz
Max Verstappen
Sébastien Buemi
Brendon Hartley
Christian Klien
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Daniel Ricciardo
Jean-Eric Vergne
Daniil Kvyat
Jaime Alguersuari
Pierre Gasly
Alex Albon
Yuki Tsunoda
Scott Pace
Enrique Bernoldi
Patrick Friesacher
Purple Bull Racing
RB
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