Quote Originally Posted by jens View Post
However, I don't blame Red Bull's "treatment", because they have to carry on with their young driver conveyor belt. It is written into their driver strategy! .... It is harsh, but Toro Rosso is not meant for making a long career there, i.e drive a 10-year-career in STR only. This would completely stall the driver conveyor.
In Vettel's case it meant graduation to the Red Bull team and four championships, so their driver development program paid big dividends.

Here, though, they invested at least four years in Vergne, and now he's gone. Red Bull got nothing out of it, so from a business standpoint it didn't pay off.

If Red Bull is doing this for the sport, their program works well, that is, until there is no room for their protoges to move up into Red Bull. Then they are just out. Sadly there is nowhere for them to go because all but the biggest teams need a driver to bring money. Apparently the Red Bull development program doesn't teach them how to raise funding.

STR is meant to be used as a platform - you drive 2-3 years and then move to another team.
That's great, but there's nowhere to go unless you have a bag full of cash.

It would have been great had Vergne got that Williams 3rd driver role. Perhaps he can still get that?
It would be bad for business to give Toto's wife the boot if you are running a Merc.