Renault's driver academy boss on the growing competition between teams for racing's rising stars and how F1 can learn from football
Wednesday 24 January 2018 18:14, UK
"We all look up to Helmut and Red Bull."
When it comes to the development of young drivers, there has been a clear benchmark in Formula 1 over the last decade. The Helmut Marko-led Red Bull programme has delivered a conveyor belt of driving talent to the sport, with four world titles and 55 race victories the headline results from years of investment.
But whatever the sport, youth development is no guarantee of success. But yet it's that standout discovery of a Sebastian Vettel or a Max Verstappen that makes all the investment worthwhile. And it's a challenge taken up again over the last two years by Renault and their academy director Mia Sharizman.
"The success of the academy will depend on the success of the drivers on track," Sharizman told Sky Sports at the launch of the Renault Sport Academy's 2018 programme when they confirmed the seven young hopefuls on their books this year.
"We have a strict criteria and looking at the level of drivers we have here all of them finished in the top two in their various championships. The success for us has been having the drivers we have challenging for the titles."
Relaunched on the company's return to F1 ownership, the Renault academy is now into its third year. Seven young hopefuls aged between 16 and 22 have been signed for 2018 - three drivers from France, two from Britain, one from Denmark and one from China.
The oldest, 22-year-old British-Korean Jack Aitken, steps up to Formula 2 where he will team-mate compatriot George Russell, a Mercedes protege, at former champions ART. At series newcomers Carlin, there is McLaren's Lando Norris, while the Ferrari academy is represented by Antonio Fuoco at Charouz Racing System.
It makes it the most anticipated F2/GP2 field in years and one which the big F1 teams and their increasingly visible driver programmes have plenty riding on. After all, F1's battleground extends far beyond the race track at 21 venues each year.
"During our announcement I was checking and Red Bull announced their junior drivers just three hours before!" said Sharizman, a former GP2 team chief and motorsport official in Malaysia.
"Obviously Helmut and Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes, my colleagues are all around there [keeping an eye on the programmes]. We all look up to Helmut and Red Bull."
Renault say they weighed up the "pros and cons" of their rivals' schemes before committing to the blueprint for their own, but are also aware there are also useful lessons to be learned from their own F1 history.
In the 2000s the Renault Driver Development Programme provided the stepping stone for Robert Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen, Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado to join the sport. And while Fernando Alonso wasn't part of the same set-up, he was the poster boy for Renault's investment in youth and became F1's then-youngest world champion with the team aged 24.
"Fifteen years ago it was only Renault," says Sharizman. "There was no Red Bull, McLaren was just Lewis Hamilton, and so it was only Renault. Renault was the Red Bull.
"Now we restart back again and we look at what they have and what we can have, but at the end of the day it's up to our objective and it also depends when is the availability of the F1 race driver."
For the time being, there is no F1 seat available. Renault pair the 30-year-old Nico Hulkenberg and the 23-year-old Carlos Sainz in their 2018 line-up with both drivers chasing the first podiums of their F1 careers. For a developing team set to target similar milestones in the new season, it's a sensible fit.
But that doesn't mean there are not longer-term targets in place for what Sharizman terms a "home-grown" star.
"The target of the academy is to be able to bring one of those guys into Formula 1 by 2020," Renault boss Cyril confirmed to Sky Sports News, with plans afoot to follow Ferrari and Mercedes' leads in placing promising youngsters at teams which take their engines.
Of course, there is one known inevitability: more youngsters will fail to make the grade than step up to F1. For all their success, Red Bull replace drivers on their junior programme every year. Sharizman knows success and failure can be judged in a "draconian" way, but says Renault are focusing on a programme tailored to the individual.
"Everyone has their own different philosophy and blueprint. We have our own," he said.
"We looked at the model of Ferrari, the model of Red Bull, the model of McLaren and we also looked at where we were before. Everybody is assuming Renault is a corporate company and whatnot, but we try to be as personalised and bespoke and individual as we can."
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And Sharizman believes there are lessons to be learned from further ahead than motorsport, with a recent trip to Southampton FC's renowned Academy proving enlightening.
"We look at football a lot because it has a very wide academy," he explained. "You have your Under 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 groups every year whereas for us in Formula 1 because of the licensing issue you can only start racing at 15 or 16 in single seaters. So we can only look at that.
"We were at the Southampton academy last month, one of the best ones in the country. We are working on a possible collaboration with them. It's quite interesting to see how the programming of selections in terms of the various Excel sheets they have and these things. It's not just training."
But training is nonetheless the next stop for Renault's 2018 juniors, with the seven drivers whisked off to Doha in Qatar for a pre-season training camp at the same Aspire Academy used at the start of the month by Bayern Munich.
And, while Renault is effectively France's national F1 team, the academy's goal is to produce the best - rather than necessarily the country's first F1 champion in a quarter of a century.
"The first priority is to have the best driver to win a world championship, but whether the best driver comes from Asia, Europe or South America it does not matter," added Sharizman.
As Red Bull have found, delivering on investment in youth certainly matters with Renault and Sharizman hoping the next decade delivers their own Vettel or Verstappen.
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