Goethe and Tramnitz have been excluded from the Red Bull program.

      Red Bull has decided to part ways with two fairly decent drivers who were part of the Austrian company's junior programme. However, it seemed that this was inevitable.

      21-year-old German Oliver Goethe raced in Formula 2 for MP Motorsport but finished the season only 15th in the drivers' standings. His best results were a pair of fourth places in the Saturday sprint races, which nevertheless did not prevent him from staying with the Dutch team for another season.

      Tim Tramnitz, another German MP Motorsport driver who competed in Formula 3, also will not be able to continue his collaboration with Red Bull, despite finishing 4th in the drivers' standings. He was warned in advance that if he could not find a seat in F3 or F2 teams for the 2026 season, they would have to part ways with him.

      According to GPBlog.com, Tramnitz failed to secure financial backing from sponsors, which prevents him from continuing his career in the junior categories, so Red Bull did what they had intended to do.

      Thus, in Formula 2 only the talented and quick Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov will remain from the programme's participants. But three reasonably promising Red Bull drivers will debut in F3 – 17-year-olds Mattia Colnaghi (Italy) and Ernesto Rivera (Mexico), and 18-year-old Fionn MacLaflin (Ireland).

      The Red Bull racing academy is known not only for the achievements of its top graduates but also for its rather harsh approach to developing racing talent – Helmut Marko, who until recently ran the programme, kept everyone, as they say, under tight control.

      We recently published recollections by António Félix da Costa, who spoke about it quite vividly. However, there is no room for sentiment in sport, and if a young driver shows good results and does so consistently, Red Bull can very well take him to Formula 1, and there have been plenty of such examples.