Jak Crawford

Red Bull adds 14-year-old American racer to its Junior Team

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Red Bull has added 14-year-old American racer Jak Crawford to its expanded Junior Team for the 2020 season, which now featured seven drivers.

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Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:


https://twitter.com/jarno_opmeer/status/1222116566243926017

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Comment of the day

@JayMenon10 weighs in on why F1 failed to take off in Malaysia:

The passion for motorsport among locals in Malaysia is high. Just look at Moto GP, Sepang pretty much sells out every year.

Average people in Malaysia would have loved to attend F1 races more regularly but by local standards the tickets were far too expensive (even though they are some of the cheapest on the calendar, for the average person, it was a step too far). A lot of the grandstand tickets in the early days were bought by corporations, I’ve been to the race a fair few times on these ‘free’ tickets as well. But as the years went on, corporate interest waned as well.

Moto GP was more affordable to the common man. Fans voted with their wallets in this case, unfortunately.
@JayMenon10

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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19 comments on “Red Bull adds 14-year-old American racer to its Junior Team”

  1. Norris, I’m sad to say that Sainz Jr might not love you the same. He is only interest in what you can give him. Lando, there is plenty of other fish on the sea.

    1. @peartree

      I don’t think Sainz is any more selfish or self centred than any other F1 driver on the grid. Once the competition gets tough in the McLaren camp, and they start fighting for higher places, that’s when the knives will come out for both drivers. For now… maybe we should sit back and adore their bromance ;)

      1. @todfod Sainz is only interest in being on top of Norris.

  2. Genuinely concerning content in that article “why I fell out of love with..” and none that has bothered me all along with the push to have even more races.

    I’m sure this chap is probably not the only one who has developed serious mental health issues in the world of F1, and can only see more things like this happening as more races (and more pressure) is piled on to what is already a very full calendar.

    Hopefully all teams, and not just those that can afford it, are putting mechanisms in place to address the overall good health of their staff. Rotating “away” teams to me would be an obvious one, but I also recognise that this would probably come at a high cost, particularly for the lower budget teams.

    Surely the FIA has an overarching Health and Safety policy that needs to be adhered to?

    1. Darn “something” that has bothered me, not “none” that has bothered me. Oh for an edit facility…..

    2. @dbradock, sadly, that is one area in motorsport as a whole that has generally been swept under the carpet. There have been quite a few people who used to work in the pit lane who have talked about mental health issues appearing amongst people – dysfunctional relationships and alcohol abuse are not unknown issues.

      It reminds me of an article that Max Oxley wrote about the world of MotoGP, where he talked about the under reported issue of mental health problems and depression amongst the MotoGP paddock. Although mainly focussing on the riders, he noted how it was fairly common across the grid, and also down into the junior series below MotoGP, for riders to suffer from mental health issues and depression.

      He cited the recent example of Johann Zarco in late 2019, where discussions with some members of KTM suggested that Zarco asked to leave the team because he was suffering from depression and mental burnout – he was starting to suffer from erratic mood swings, causing him to suddenly start venting his frustrations at his mechanics, and eventually was so miserable that he quit the team. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/motorcycles/motogp/do-motogp-riders-get-depressed

      Unfortunately, because the Motorsport Magazine website has been updated recently, the additional comments that had been added by Oxley in the comments thread discussing the issues of mental health in MotoGP are now lost – still, the main article gives some element of that discussion.

      To some extent, the issues in that series are common across much of motorsport, including F1 – the sort of macho attitude that suppresses talk of such issues that, if anything, makes the problem worse because it becomes an unspoken issue that nobody wants to discuss and nobody wants to address, making those suffering with such issues feel even more isolated.

      The attitude of “you’re not getting any sympathy from me” is reinforcing many of those problems and often exacerbating it, since those who want to find help can’t find it – meaning that they resort to displacement activities to try and temporarily blot out those issues. It is a difficult subject, and it feels as if many would rather not address it and simply pretend it isn’t an issue because it means they can avoid talking about something that might make them feel rather uncomfortable, or be forced to face the fact that the current environment of the sport can have negative impacts on the mental health of those involved.

      1. Thanks for your input Anon.

        Unfortunately you describe not only Motorsport but a huge number of industries and even agriculture where there is a high proportion of males.

        Given the number of sports psychologists involved in any sport these days, you’d think it would t be a huge stretch for teams to add some form of counselling services for their staff instead of just for their drivers, but I seriously doubt they would because it would mean admitting that their work environments may not be as wonderful as they’d have us believe.

        I imagine that there’s been a very large number of people that have landed what they thought would be their dream job (as I’m assuming that the writer thought when he first started) only to discover that the reality doesn’t match the illusion. I’m not saying that working har is a bad thing, and working hard in a team can be extremely rewarding, but in order for that to happen, it requires a well managed organisation, and in my experience in quite a few industries, they are few and far between, so I’d expect F1 to be no different.

        This chap/chapess has intimated that that his/her thoughts started to lean towards being suicidal – I’m hoping that F1 may take note of that and not just brush it under the rug until someone (or more that a single someone) actually takes that route.

  3. There are some wonderful people working in Formula 1. Many of whom I consider lifelong friends and have always looked out for me. However, based on my experiences, the majority working in the sport are one or more of the following: egotistical, ignorant, parasitic, materialistic, self-centered, malicious and manipulative.

    Welcome to the real world, my boy. All that article tells us that F1 is, though a passion of many, just a job like any other once you get past the “OMG, I’m involved in F1” feeling. Obviously, there’s higher pressure because there are millions of people who’d do your job, probably for less money than you earn. It’s a shame for him personally and I hope he’s content with whatever he currently does, but if he expects any particular sympathy from me or a debate about the state of affairs in F1, then I fear he’ll be disappointed.

    1. My sentiment exactly. What is the difference with virtually any other workplace, especially a high-paid and competitive one?

  4. Lol I hope for Charles that FIA president Jean Todt is NOT right as i saw lots of improvement possibilities for Charles and if FIA president Jean Todt is believed Charles can’t improve anymore…..

    Drivers input is around 30% but GOOD drivers could improve that number to 40% atleast.

  5. It’s always enjoyable and refreshing to listen to sound clips of the new PU-specs ahead of each pre-season testing phase, although this particular one I had already heard yesterday.

    From the On this day in F1: I miss the predominantly yellow helmet-design of LH.

  6. To the guy who fell out of love with F1 because everyone is ignorant selfish and manipulative: worse, much worse is waiting for you in the outside world.

  7. W11 is just awesome!

    Can’t believe 2020 season is almost here! can’t wait!

  8. That “F1 2019 world record video” has just reinforced the reason I can’t get into watching Esports. Impressive as that lap was, and it was indeed – far far far better than I could ever do, it just isn’t possible to do in the real world. The lines he ran to run the shortest line round the lap, particularly round most of the first sector and the third to last turn would be impossible in a real F1 car. You can’t run consistently on the kerbs like that without damaging the floor, and you can’t tip an F1 car into a corner in excess of 250 kph with it bouncing round on the kerbs and have any hope that it will go through the turn on rails. I don’t care how expensive his “sim rig” was, it was still just a lap in a video game, albeit a very, very good one.

    Esports, while impressive and requiring huge amounts of talent, sill and practice, are not replacements for sports.

    1. Well games can never become so close to real life that they could be exact copy of the real world. But if we look back even 10 or 15 years we can see just how much more games have evolved throught the years. For my point of view even if there are racing games there’s still very little similarity between sim and real world racing. But like you said you don’t just jump in and beat everyone in both occasions.

    2. Hamilton’s pole lap from 2019 by way of comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiylFg4Xl_0

    3. @geemac agreed! It still looks unrealistic. And I can’t help but think he’s got all four wheels off at 33 seconds in the video. Also, I’m always disappointed to start a promising video and end up watching a simulation :)

  9. Also easier to do if you know when you crash it’s not going to hurt. Btw how much curb did that bloke use !!

  10. re: todt & leclerc. another balestre/prost love affair?

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