During the American broadcast of the German GP, Speed TV announcer and former F1 driver David Hobbs spoke a bit on Helmut Marko - who we all know as the evil guy behind all the Red Bull & Toro Rosso driver changes. While I think it's pretty clear that STR did Scott Speed and Bourdais wrong, Hobbs did try to explain a little bit about the man.
Apparently, he grew up as friends with Jochen Rindt, F1's only posthumous champion. Hobbs was saying how they grew up without much support at all in the racing community and thus had to be perfect in order to survive. Soon after Rindt's death, Marko's own career was cut short when he was hit in the face with a stone during a race and lost vision in one of his eyes. However, Marko still carries this "no mistakes allowed" mentality when it comes to the Red Bull Junior Academy. Brendon Hartley seems to be one of the latest victims there in spite of only being 22 years old. And of course we all remember Marko basically calling last year's STR drivers "losers" in the off-season.
Although I still think he's a bit harsh on the young guys, it's nice to get a better idea of where he is coming from. Below is a link to an article about him I found online:
http://jalopnik.com/5872675/the-terrific-exploits-of-helmut-marko-red-bulls-one eyed-kingmaker
Apparently, he grew up as friends with Jochen Rindt, F1's only posthumous champion. Hobbs was saying how they grew up without much support at all in the racing community and thus had to be perfect in order to survive. Soon after Rindt's death, Marko's own career was cut short when he was hit in the face with a stone during a race and lost vision in one of his eyes. However, Marko still carries this "no mistakes allowed" mentality when it comes to the Red Bull Junior Academy. Brendon Hartley seems to be one of the latest victims there in spite of only being 22 years old. And of course we all remember Marko basically calling last year's STR drivers "losers" in the off-season.
Although I still think he's a bit harsh on the young guys, it's nice to get a better idea of where he is coming from. Below is a link to an article about him I found online:
http://jalopnik.com/5872675/the-terrific-exploits-of-helmut-marko-red-bulls-one eyed-kingmaker