Exclusive: Jean-Eric Vergne on Red Bull's Young Driver Programme & his F1 future
"I really think I have my place in F1," Frenchman says
Thursday 16 October 2014 12:08, UK
As it turned out, the Thursday press day at the Japanese GP was not the most propitious time to speak to Jean-Eric Vergne about his future.
According to those in the know, it was that very evening when Fernando Alonso and Ferrari agreed that their relationship was going nowhere; once Sebastian Vettel got wind of their desire to part ways, he told Red Bull that he, too, was off…to Maranello presumably. All of a sudden, things seemed to be moving very quickly indeed.
And no matter what people would have you believe, it showed that no-one – no matter how well connected they are – has their finger on the F1 pulse all the time. Even Christian Horner said he had no idea Vettel was leaving until Friday night; both his team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo, and his replacement, Daniil Kvyat, said they didn’t know until Saturday morning, when Red Bull made the news official. Lewis Hamilton said he knew all along but there’s always one, isn’t there?
Whether the ripples have any effect on Vergne only time will tell, but ever since Red Bull dropped another bombshell in August, when they announced the arrival of 17-year-old Max Verstappen on the grid in 2015, it has been assumed that the Frenchman will leave Toro Rosso. Team boss Franz Tost hinted in Russia that Kvyat’s surprise promotion might spare Vergne after all, but given their relentless quest for the next big thing, the feeling persists that after his prolonged audition for a Red Bull seat, their preference of, first, Ricciardo and now Kvyat means the writing is still on the wall for the 24-year-old.
If so, Vergne will be forced to follow the likes of Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi – both of whom were yanked from the production line and dumped in the reject bin, their F1 careers over at an age when, for most of us, the notion of a career seems nebulous at best. Imagine that: your life has barely begun and yet, in professional terms, you've already turned the corner.
Such is the way of the Red Bull young driver programme; to be accepted sounds rather like auditioning successfully for a TV talent show or boyband. Potentially there's a big price to pay but Vergne knew what he was letting himself in for at the outset: they've given him a chance he wouldn't otherwise have had.
Unlike the majority of his predecessors, though, can he turn his career around and re-establish himself in F1?
In Belgium, it seemed that you accepted Toro Rosso’s decision. You were even joking about it, saying ‘I’m too old at 24’ and that kind of thing. But what’s your understanding about why they’ve made the decision they’ve made?
Jean-Eric Vergne: “I don’t want to understand it. People have their reasons; the same way as I don’t want to understand how he [Verstappen] could get the Super Licence. This is not in my hands and this will not change my future, this will not change anything of my life. So it makes no sense for me that I waste my energy in trying to understand things. All I understand is that Toro Rosso is there with Red Bull-backing, which is a team to promote young drivers. And it stands that after three years you’re not really a young driver anymore and that they need to keep feeding the programme with young drivers. That’s what I understand – I understood it – but then who, how, why? I don’t want to know.”
You’ve seen both sides of it now, haven’t you? Because when you were picked
