Red Bull has retained Vips in junior driver programme

Red Bull Racing terminated Juri Vips' contract with the team as its test and reserve driver, but the Estonian has been retained in the energy drink company's junior driver programme.

The Hitech F2 charger lost his reserve role with RBR after the 21-year-old was found guilty of using the N-word on Twitch during a live stream of a video game.

However, Red Bull said on Wednesday that the Vips is still part of its junior driver programme, which implies that the Estonian's chances of racing one day in Formula 1 are still intact.

"Juri’s contract as Test & Reserve driver was cancelled by Oracle Red Bull Racing due to the comments he made," said Red Bull.

"He is retained by Red Bull as part of their Junior Driver programme. We are supporting him as he transitions away from his role with Oracle Red Bull Racing."

• Read also: Lawson to replace Vips as Red Bull F1 reserve

Red Bull's young driver academy has promoted numerous talents to F1 since its inception, and its current pool of young drivers remains as strong as ever according to Christian Horner.

"Obviously we’ve got quite a few youngsters and really promising youngsters that are out there at the moment," said the RBR team boss.

"We have Liam Lawson, we have Dennis Hauger racing in Formula 2 as well as [Jeahan] Daruvala that remains as a junior driver, despite testing with another team [McLaren].

"Iwasa is showing great potential as well. And that’s just in Formula 2.

"In Formula 3, it’s great to see Johnny Edgar back after illness, quite a nasty illness earlier in the year, giving him another chance.

"Isack Hadjar is doing a super job as well. So we’ve got no shortage of talent coming through, all the way from karting through the different formulae.

"And that’s always been a policy of Red Bull, to give youth a chance, to back youth, and give opportunities to some of these kids that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to progress their careers."

While Red Bull Racing's line-up of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will remain unchanged in the future, a could of uncertainty surrounds the fate of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda.

It's unclear if the Japanese driver will remain with the Italian outfit beyond this season, but if Tsunoda's result don't improve, an opportunity could materialize for one of Red Bull's juniors.

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