"He doesn’t really want us to be prepared" - Red Bull junior driver reveals the 'pressure' put by Helmut Marko on his drivers

Red Bull junior driver Juri Vips believes the team’s special advisor Helmut Marko has the right approach when it comes to training young talent for an eventual F1 seat.

Marko throws new talent into “the deep end” to test their skills under pressure, a proven approach according to Vips, who points out the success rate of the Red Bull junior academy. Speaking on the F1 Feeder Series podcast, he said:

“He [Helmut Marko] likes to put the drivers under pressure. Especially at the beginning, when you first come in. Helmut likes everything to be done at the last minute, he doesn’t really want us to be prepared, he likes to throw us in the deep end, so to speak. I don’t want to question his methods, because almost half the [F1] grid is made up of Red Bull drivers, past and present. What he’s doing is clearly working.”

Over the last decade, Helmut Marko has developed a notorious reputation for his ruthless methods in training young talent who are part of the energy drinks company’s junior program. A former F1 driver himself, Marko believes that only the best of the bunch, who can cope under the most difficult conditions, are worth the team’s attention.

Underperforming drivers are usually given an ultimatum and if they fail to live up to standards, they are usually booted out on short notice, even in F1. While he has toned down his ruthlessness in recent years, Marko is still highly demanding of his drivers.

Recalling his own experience dealing with the austere Austrian, Vips said that he was only informed that he would be driving an F1 car just two days before his first test for the team. He added, saying:

“The first test I did in F1 was to get my super license. I had to drive 300 kilometers in an old car. I was in Japan; I had already missed half my season [in Super Formula due to COVID]. I got a phone call from Helmut: ‘Fly to Europe, in two days you get your seat and in three days you drive the 2012 F1 car’.”

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Juri Vips remembers being “bullied” by Red Bull’s Helmut Marko

Giving even more insights into the workings of the Red Bull Junior Driver Academy, Juri Vips has revealed that Helmut Marko threatened to boot him out of the program after a disastrous performance during his very first run in an F1 simulator. Speaking on the Feeder Series podcast, he said:

“Before my very first simulator session at Red Bull, I had only done two days in the simulator in my entire life. Surprise, I sucked! The next day, I guess Helmut [Marko] got the report, and I got a phone call saying more or less: ‘You suck, if you don’t improve, I’ll fire you’. I hadn’t even done a race for them, just a session on the simulator! It was nice to get to know each other like that! I knew he was just bullying me, and I was smart enough to know he wasn’t going to fire me because of a bad session on the simulator. He knew that it was on the track that it mattered.”

Juri Vips has been with the Austrian team since 2018 and has driven for the team during the 2020 and 2021 young drivers' tests. Currently driving in F2, the Estonian is aiming to follow in the footsteps of nearly a dozen Red Bull drivers into F1.