Red Bull’s unorthodox mandatory rookie F1 run plan revealed

All teams are obliged to run a rookie in each car during one FP1 session throughout the season. While five teams elected to do so in Mexico City on Friday, Red Bull are yet to do so. 

Mexico and Abu Dhabi are logical choices for the teams given the events take place towards the end of the year and are traditional weekend formats. 

But while most teams have opted to run only one rookie at a time, Red Bull will provide outings in both of their cars in opening practice at the season finale at the Yas Marina Circuit. 

“We’re planning to do that in Abu Dhabi in the last standard race of the year at a circuit we’ve got quite a bit of data on,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained. 

“In the heat of the day, that first session in Abu Dhabi tends to have not a great deal of car set-up value, so that’s when we’re going to elect to put both rookie drivers in our cars.”

Horner revealed that Formula E champion Jake Dennis will make his grand prix weekend debut, while Formula 2’s Isack Hadjar will get a run out in the RB19 after making his F1 bow for sister team AlphaTauri in Mexico. 

“Jake Dennis is going to be driving one of the cars and Isack will be in the other car. It was good to see him putting in a strong performance for Franz’s [Tost] team today,” Horner added. 

AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost tipped an F1 future for 19-year-old Hadjar. 

“He did a good job, I must say,” Tost said after Hadjar ended up 17th-fastest in Mexico, “We were all impressed by him.

“He was out with three different sets of tyres; the prototype tyre, the medium and the soft. And with all these different compounds, I must say that he really did a good job. 

“His technical feedback was also quite good because if you compare it to the data, it’s a very high correlation. We are really impressed and I think that he will be soon in Formula 1."