Red Bull has a large number of young drivers on their roster who are being trained for a possible Formula One career, but this year’s driver will be one of their more experienced athletes.
At the end of this season, Formula E world champion Jake Dennis will drive a Red Bull vehicle.
In order to provide racers classified as “rookies” with an opportunity to drive, Formula 1 regulations require teams to forfeit one FP1 session annually for each driver. Red Bull has yet to act and plans to hold off until the season’s last race.
That means Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will both sit out the first practice session at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. As the Sprint format will be used in Brazil next weekend and the Las Vegas track is a complete unknown for the regular drivers, the trip to the Yas Marina Circuit is the only viable option left.
Formula 2 racer Isack Hadjar will be in one of the Red Bulls in Abu Dhabi. The French-Algerian racer get his first taste of an F1 weekend in Mexico on Friday when he took part in FP1 for sister team AlphaTauri.
And the other man lined up is much more experienced. Dennis, 28, is an F1 rookie by definition but has raced for Andretti Global in Formula E for the last three seasons and won the title for the first time this year.
Alongside his efforts in that championship, he has remained a simulator and development driver for Red Bull. And so Dennis will get the chance to impress behind the wheel of the title-winning RB19 which has blown away the competition this year.
Team principal Christian Horner confirmed the plan when asked by reporters of Red Bull’s FP1 plans for the rest of this year. “We are planning to do it in Abu Dhabi in the last standard race of the year,” he said.
“We’ve got quite a bit of data and in the heat of the day, that first session in Abu Dhabi tends to have no great deal in car set-up value, so that’s when we’re going to elect to put both rookie drivers in our cars. 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 put in a strong performance for [AlphaTauri in Mexico].”
Hadjar was the second fastest of the five rookies who participated in the Friday practice session. With the Haas, Ollie Bearman was the fastest driver overall (15th place), and the Ferrari driver held the unique distinction of being the only one to set a faster lap time than Fernando Alonso, a full-time Formula One star.
While Frederik Vesti took over for George Russell at Mercedes, Jack Doohan drove for Alpine. Theo Pourchaire, who leads the F1 standings, drove an Alfa Romeo onto the track, but his run was only extended to four laps because of a persistent brake problem.