AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost says any team running two rookies has "no chance" of racing in F1's midfield, let alone among the front-runners.
As a mentor of young talent at the helm of Red Bull's sister outfit, Tost has guided the first steps in F1 of many drivers, including in 2014 when Toro Rosso ran rookies Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz.
Last year, Haas entrusted its cars to debutants Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin as part of a longer term development plan involving the German and Russian chargers.
But Tost believes that F1's evolution and its current level of competition leave a team employing two rookie drivers with very little chance of moving up the pecking order.
"Nowadays with this [kind of] Formula 1, to have two unexperienced drivers you have a real big challenge and in the constructors' championship you will immediately be in the back," Tost said, quoted by Motorsport.com.
"There is no chance with two rookies to be in the midfield or in the front, because the field is far too competitive, it's too strong.
"If you look to the qualifying times, it's hundredths of a second. I think in Saudi Arabia Pierre [Gasly] was at 0.087s behind [Charles] Leclerc, which is 78 centimetres or whatever, and that was two positions.
"And if you have a young driver, an unexperienced one, you're talking about tenths [they'll be behind], not about thousands."
©AlphaTauri
Tost obviously isn't against employing young raw talent as part of AlphaTauri's purpose is to bring in the latter as a final step in Red Bull's young driver program.
But the Austrian prefers to rely on at least one experienced driver to help carry the team forward, as was the case in 2021 with Gasly and newcomer Yuki Tsunoda.
"I think that the combination with one experienced driver [and a rookie is better]," Tost added.
"Then of course if there's a very high skilled young driver Scuderia AlphaTauri is always in a position and ready to educate a young driver."
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