Red Bull Wanted To Sign Norris And Alonso Reveals Marko

Sunday, 08 September 2024 at 10:41

Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko revealed in a recent interview two instances from the past when he tried to sign Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso.

The Red Bull Racing F1 team is perhaps one of the strongest, if not the strongest, when it comes to bringing up young, talented drivers. Dietrich Mateschitz (the late co-founder of Red Bull) once said, "We don't buy stars. We make them."

Six drivers on the current F1 grid (even ones that don't race for Red Bull teams anymore) have come from the Austrian team's academy.

The names include, Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz, and Max Verstappen. In 2025, we will likely see another Red Bull academy driver on the grid - Liam Lawson.

While Red Bull has always prioritized its own drivers, the team also kept an eye on the talent around it. During a recent appearance on the Inside Line F1 podcast, Helmut Marko revealed he tried to sign Lando Norris for Toro Rosso a few years ago.

“"We had serious discussions and we had a contract ready for Lando Norris. For AlphaTauri or Toro Rosso [now known as VCARB] at that time."”

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“"And unfortunately, they [McLaren] found out. They had two contracts and then one was a clause which stopped this cooperation with Lando Norris."”

Much further back, the team from Milton Keynes also tried to sign Fernando Alonso. But it was in the very early beginnings when Red Bull had no winning record in F1 yet. Marko said:

“"Before we started winning, I don't know exactly which year, I think it might have been 2008 or so, we had been talking to [Fernando] Alonso."”

“"But he didn't take us seriously, I guess, and so that didn't happen. But the rest, as I said, we are proud about our two World Champions [Vettel and Verstappen]."”