Formula 1 can be a cruel business for people to ply their trade in. Even drivers brimming with talent have never reached their full potential. And while being an F1 driver can define one’s life, it can very well end one’s racing career too as former Red Bull junior Jaime Alguersuari explained in an interview.
The 34-year-old recently opened up about his time in F1 where he raced for Toro Rosso (now RB) for three seasons between 2009 and 2011. He was only 21 when he was given the sack by Red Bull. To this day, the Spaniard holds a grudge against his former employers for the way they sacked him despite him beating his teammate and registering decent results.
“It is crystal clear that the way they fired me was not correct. They waited until the last minutes of the season to fire me. That hurt a lot because it was also the end of my career,” he told The Mirror.
Ride #OnBoard with Jaime Alguersuari on the streets of Hong Kong! #givesyouwings pic.twitter.com/IeimGGdWs8
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) February 16, 2018
Alguersuari did have an opportunity to drive for the Lotus F1 team in 2012. That said, because of the last-minute axe he received from the Milton-Keynes-based outfit, he lost that chance and that fell into the laps of Romain Grosjean.
What really made the situation worse for him was the fact that he could not understand the team’s decision. “I beat my teammate [Sebastian Buemi] and I regularly finished in the top eight. I thought it would be good enough to be promoted to Red Bull in 2012,” he added.
Alguersuari blames Helmut Marko for Red Bull exit
After his racing career fell apart, the 34-year-old has made a career for himself as a DJ. But ever so often, the harrowing incidents from 2011 crop up in his mind and he concedes that he still isn’t comfortable dealing with the fallout of Red Bull’s decision to sack him.
The former racing driver feels that team advisor Helmut Marko was instrumental in deciding the fate of his racing career. The Austrian did not see eye to eye with Alguersuari, leading to that one phone call that changed his life.
“It was a very short phone call, which only lasted one minute,” Alguersuari concluded. At the end of the day, however, Alguersuari is thankful to the team for at least giving him the opportunity to live out the life he had dreamed of as a kid — by becoming a Formula 1 driver.
