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Alguersuari clarifies Marko 'angry face' comments

Former Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari has spoken further about his feelings regarding his time in the Red Bull driver development programme.

Alguersuari made his F1 debut in Hungary in 2009, becoming the youngest driver in the championship to that date, and went on to complete two full seasons with Toro Rosso in 2010 and 2011.

In an interview with interview with Spain's El Confidencial, Alguersuari said that he still dreamed of that time, and about Marko being "always angry, telling us off as if we were children".

Even this all this time, the Spanish driver said it still left him with a sense of trauma over "the helplessness and frustration of never meeting expectations".

Read also: Traumatized Alguesuari still haunted by images of 'angry' Marko

But Alguersuari - who is now a professional DJ - decided to add to his comments through a Twitter response in order to clarify his feelings towards Red Bull's legendary motorsport consultant.

"I want to clarify something regarding Helmet Marko," he posted. "I am deeply thankful to have met him when I was 15, Helmut was my teacher and someone who always asked me to deliver to push and boost myself forward and beyond.

"I have not enough words of gratitude to RB and Helmut Marko because they have showed me a way of discipline, of dedication and hard f****ng work that is helping me out reach other goals in my life, in my music

"I'm 100% sure I wouldn't be who I am today without being inside RB," he added.

"When competing at the highest level w[h]ether is F1, football, rugby or golf, in order to highlight it requires an extremely demanding mind to look for more performance.

"Even if you win, RB will keep demanding you higher and higher and higher," he added. "This is the junior team system, and it works."

Despite scoring 31 points during his two-and-a-half years and 46 outings with the team - including seventh place in Italy and Korea in 2011 - Alguesuari was dropped at the end of that season.

Toro Rosso brought in an all-new driver line-up consisting of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo for 2012. Alguesuari continued racing in sportscars and spent a season in Formula E before moving into music production full-time as well as working on F1 coverage for various broadcasters.

Marko's junior driver development programme has been often criticised for the ruthless way that it ejected young drivers who were seen as not up to the team's high expectations.

But the system did identify Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen very early in their careers, who between them have picked up five drivers championships - with a sixth on the way for Verstappen in 2022.

While Vergne suffered a similar fate in F1 to Alguersuari, he went on to become two-time Formula E champion. And current drivers Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz are all graduates of the Red Bull initiative.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.