Kvyat case: Red Bull gives you wings, but can also clip them at twenty-two...

Indignation, indignation, bitterness. Feelings that spread among fans after the news of the "turnover" decided by Red Bull between Daniil Kvyat, relegated to Toro Rosso, and Max Verstappen, promoted with immediate effect to the starting driver of Milton Keynes.

Marko gives, Marko takes away. The gray eminence of the drink sellers gives you wings and can clip them, plays chess with pedestrians who are young men, is a talent scout putting and removing beardless kids in cars, betting rather than believing on the talent of the drivers.

The latest victim of Red Bull's driver policy is the very young Daniil Kvyat, two podiums in one year and four races and 2015 ended in the standings ahead of his more famous teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Twenty-two years old, with a certain future, Kvyat immediately after the podium deservedly achieved in the Chinese GP found himself - as we later learned - torpedoed by his team in favor of the emerging Max Verstappen, effectively ending up in the grip of a cruel market game that irreparably compromises his career. Red Bull has chosen its sacrificial victim to "armor" that Verstappen courted on the market by others big. Who knows, in a year and a half the same (bad) fate may not befall the same (for charity, innocent) Max, perhaps put under pressure due to the brilliant and glittering rise of a sixteen-year-old taken from the playstation and transformed into an F1 champion, for use and consumption of sponsors, cameras and advertising.

Kvyat is the extreme case, perhaps the most striking, of a "cantera" policy that does not aim to develop young pilots, but to track down the current phenomenon at the expense of many others. For one - so far only one - doughnut that really ended up with a hole, i.e. the multi-titled Ferrari champion Sebastian Vettel (four consecutive world titles with Red Bull), too many drivers were "desaparecidos" due to the group's brutal driver policy Red Bull.

Think of Sebastien Buemi, who was able to reinvent himself as an endurance driver by building a solid career outside of F1. But also to Jaime Alguersuari, launched at a very young age in Toro Rosso and whose F1 career ended abruptly due to the famous misunderstanding in Korea in 2011 with Vettel during a (failed) dubbing. There is also Felix Da Costa, Portuguese hope and betrothed to F1 never seen in the top category, not to mention the Frenchman Jean Eric Vergne, a mastiff competing with STR in 2014 and nevertheless abandoned to his fate.

There is nothing more painful for a growing young driver than to be launched into Olympus, to be praised and presented as a great driver, only to be left alone, accompanied to the door without appeal, without the possibility of having a second chance. Red Bull has a frenetic policy: either you prove to be a phenomenon straight away, or you're out. There are too many young talents, there is no time to learn, to improve, to become men before being tightrope walkers on the track.

The confused, crazy, surreal Kvyat in Sochi was not the cause of his relegation to Toro Rosso nor was it simply the consequence of a decision of which the driver was already aware and which in any case led him to overdo it, to want to prove everything and immediately, to take revenge early. No, the furious, lackluster, closed-minded Daniil of the Russian GP is simply the latest product, the paradox, of the Red Bull nursery. Kvyat and Vettel are the same. That's right; they are just two sides of the same coin. Red Bull knows very well that for every "Vettel" there will be a "Kvyat", with Marko who, like a capricious divinity, moves the threads of the careers of apparently lucky guys, but in reality condemned to an unsustainable, unnatural and – icto oculi – counterproductive.

This is not the way to do F1, the human aspect of racing cannot be neglected to such an extent by throwing kids into the mix following cold corporate logic and without thinking that, even if famous and perhaps rich, they are still people with strengths, weaknesses and above all emotions, feelings. In the first corners of Sochi Kvyat wanted to break the world, to show everyone that he was about to suffer an injustice. He only made things worse, but raise your hand if you feel like placing the blame solely on the Russian pilot. Now Daniel”will be able to find tranquility and serenity in Toro Rosso", that's what the Red Bull leaders said. In short, at the end of the ride, we must also say thank you...

Antonino Rendina

Follow @antorendina