With Red Bull junior team AlphaTauri highly likely to have a spare seat for 2023, Helmut Marko has rejected any potential move for Mick Schumacher. In the latest stages of the F1 driver transfer market, Red Bull junior team AlphaTauri appear likely to lose Pierre Gasly to Alpine. This would leave the team with an available seat for next season, alongside Yuki Tsunoda. Historically, Red Bull teams have typically stuck to using drivers from their own talent pool, but have occasionally looked elsewhere. With Haas driver Schumacher out of contract at the end of the season and currently without a drive for next year, there has been speculation about his plans for 2023. When Red Bull Motorsport Advisor Marko was asked by Sky Germany if Schumacher was under consideration for an AlphaTauri drive, he responded firmly: "No". "He is not one of us. He is a Ferrari junior and that is why we have never done business with him. We have our own programme and prefer our own people."
Marko tight-lipped on candidates for AlphaTauri drive
Whilst Gasly is yet to be confirmed as a 2023 Alpine driver, speculation is building about the potential replacement for next season. The immediate candidates from the drivers in the Red Bull junior programme include Formula 2 drivers Liam Lawson, Ayumu Iwasa, Dennis Hauger and Jehan Daruvala. The most successful of these is Lawson, who has three Sprint Race victories and sits fifth in the F2 Drivers' Championship, but he is almost 100 points away from the lead. With none of the F2 candidates standing out, Marko confirmed that a reserve driver role is the likely outcome for one of their junior drivers. "We have some drivers in our training programme with a super license and we will commit one of them to the role of reserve driver," confirmed Marko. Outside of the Red Bull pool, IndyCar driver Colton Herta has been linked with the seat but, when asked about 'non-Red Bull' drivers, Marko was unwilling to discuss those options: "We have of course already thought about a scenario like this, but we don't want to make anything public at this stage."
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