Klien is in on Fridays!

By John Sharpe
April 14 2005

After receiving the much needed support from the nine other teams on the F1 grid, Red Bull Racing secured themselves an opportunity to change the third driver rule which would then allow Christian Klien to be the teams Friday tester.

A formal request was made from RBR to the FIA and Red Bull Racing came out on top! Klien is now in as the Red Bull third driver on Fridays.
A statement was made available that read in part,

“ Following a unanimous request from the teams, the requirement that the third [Friday] driver should not have competed in more than six World Championship events during the previous two World Championships has been deleted. As a result, any driver with a Formula One Super License may now run as a third driver on Friday.”

Christian Klien with a bit of relief met the news with confidence. The Austrian commented however, that his ultimate goal is to be back with Red Bull Racing – driving on Sundays once again.

“Of course, as a race driver it is difficult to sit on the sideline while your teammates are driving, so it is very good that I can continue to driver and also help the team at the races.” Klien added.

With all the great news some might still be wondering “what if”, regarding Scott Speed. Truly, the main objective stated by Dietrich Mateschitz was to have both Speed and Jani compete in GP2 this year – focused on winning the championship. However, with such a talented – fast driver and an obvious marketing machine in Speed, the possibility of seeing him behind the wheels on Friday was clearly evident.

With that said, this leads me to believe that RBR had a very tight contingency plan when the time came to make the Liuzzi for Klien swap. Getting Klien the third driver role was first and foremost followed by – well, only Mateschitz and Christian Horner can tell you that but Scott Speed must have figured in there somewhere.
At last, I can sleep again at night...

John.Sharpe@racingbulls.co.uk