Max Verstappen may be the most successful Dutchman in Red Bull’s Formula 1 history, but he isn’t its first driver heralding from the Netherlands. That honour is bestowed to Robert Doornbos, who stepped up from his third driver role to replace Christian Klien for the final three grands prix of 2006.
Mark Webber’s impending arrival at the fast-growing team for 2007 meant Doornbos only had a narrow window in which to impress, but it didn’t help that development on the RB2 had long since ceased. Nor had the car which David Coulthard took to the team’s maiden podium in Monaco been a regular challenger at the sharp end.
Red Bull admitted to being overoptimistic on its Ferrari V8’s cooling properties, which took too long to sort and had knock-on effects on aero efficiency. A corner hadn’t truly been turned when, following the French Grand Prix in July, the pragmatic decision was taken to focus attention on the first Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull that would begin its eventually successful affiliation with Renault.
The team’s only Ferrari-powered car began a slide down the pecking order that meant it ended up behind Toyota, BMW-Sauber and Williams in eighth overall on a basis of supertimes – although it actually outscored the latter.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Doornbos didn’t manage to crack the points, though in the same span neither did team-mate Coulthard – who had only managed two Q3 appearances after the development taps were turned off. But while they were only paired up for a short time, the 13-time grand prix winner left a big impression on a driver who had made his F1 debut with Minardi in the final eight races of 2005.
He had never previously worked with a driver of Coulthard’s status, having raced alongside fellow rookie Christijan Albers in 2005, and so Doornbos sought to soak up as much insight as he could from a driver that “ticks all the boxes” to be his favourite team-mate; “fun, fast and someone with experience”.
Doornbos (middle) replaced Klien (left) for the final three rounds of 2006 after spending the year observing Coulthard (right)
Photo by: Mark Capilitan
“I was really able to learn from his experience in F1, how you present yourself to the sponsors until squeezing out the fast lap in qualifying, basically the whole package,” reflects Doornbos, who found that Coulthard “was very relaxed to be around straight away”.
Doornbos was a late starter in motorsport by modern…
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