Formula 1 Racing

Iwasa “standout” Red Bull junior, Hauger “underwhelming”

Iwasa "standout" Red Bull junior, Hauger "underwhelming"

In the round-up: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner gives his verdict on his current roster of junior drivers.

In brief

Horner hails Iwasa, wanted more from other F2 juniors

With one round of the Formula 2 season to go, Jehan Daruvala is the only Red Bull junior still in contention to finish runner-up in the championship. However it’s a driver further down the standings that has impressed Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner the most, and one above him who’s underdelivered.

Horner shared his thoughts about his junior drivers on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, starting when he was asked if the Red Bull Junior Team is in good shape right now.

“Yeah it is,” he replied. “We are continuing to invest in youth. We’ve got some great youngsters in the programme, all the way from karting or stepping into Formula 4 for now, upwards. And I think it’s something that Red Bull have done so well, is giving giving these kids a chance, investing in young talent and and giving opportunities that otherwise they wouldn’t have had.

“There’s a few guys [to look out for]. I mean, Isaac Hadjar in Formula 3 this year has had a great debut season. I think [Ayumu] Iwasa in in F2 has been a standout driver for me. So they’re just two of the guys, on the programme. Liam Lawson’s had a tough year, but he’s another talent. Dennis Hauger has been a bit underwhelming in F2 after such a dominant year in F3, but again how much of that is him? How much of it is his equipment?”

Iwasa is currently ninth in the F2 points, and has a race win and a pole position from his rookie season, while Lawson sits seventh with three wins and Hauger is 11th with two victories. Ahead of all three is Daruvala, who is fifth in the standings and has tested a McLaren F1 car this year.

Agren returns to W Series

Ayla Agren has been announced as the replacement for the injured Tereza Babickova for the next W Series race in Singapore.

Babickova was diagnosed with a spinal injury following a spin at the Red Bull Ring in her first Formula Regional European Championship race earlier this month, and it ruled the single-seater rookie out of a private Formula 3 test and this weekend’s W Series action.

Agren, the 2014 F1600 Championship Series champion and a former USF2000 racer, contested all but one of last year’s W Series races as a major qualifying crash at Spa-Francorchamps left her hospitalised and meant she had to miss the race. She went on to finish 17th in the championship with…

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