Why Red Bull's junior team now has a new purpose

These are unusual times in Faenza. Scuderia AlphaTauri, as we must now call the artist formerly known as Toro Rosso, is undergoing rather more than a cosmetic rebranding. Its role in the bigger geopolitical battles of F1 is shifting; sight of its core purpose has become obscured, and yet it remains the brave little team that can.

Whatever the machinations behind the scenes, last year it managed its highest-ever points tally and equalled its best-ever finish in the constructors' championship. It takes the notion that Formula 1 thrives on stability, and throws it into the proverbial cocked hat.

And in the middle of the maelstrom - calm or otherwise - are Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly. Aged 25 and 24 respectively, they have more baggage than they deserve for their tender years but are also in possession of a rare opportunity to divest themselves and progress unencumbered.

When Red Bull bought Minardi at the end of 2005, the benefits of owning a second team were manifold: it gave the carbonated beverages men a heavier political hammer among F1's stakeholders at a time when the paddock was a much less consensual place than it is today; then there was the ability, via the auspices of Red Bull Technology, to get more bang for its design buck, neatly circumventing the legal niceties related to customer cars. It would also - and this was very much the front-of-house logic - provide the graduate school for the alumni of the Red Bull Junior Team.

More than a third of the current field have entered F1 via this route, and while it's been decried as an expensive indulgence by rivals, it's also an indulgence discussed with more than a touch of envy.

The methodology produced Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo; and it allowed Red Bull to spirit Max Verstappen away from the influence of Mercedes by dangling a race seat in front of him when he was 16: an offer he and his advisors could not refuse and one, crucially, the Silver Arrows could not match. In the 16-season history of Red Bull, the only drivers not to join the team without first completing a stint at Toro Rosso are the ones that made their debut before Toro Rosso existed.

Which all leads us to the Curious Case of Kvyat and Gasly: drivers who, contrary to the natural order of things, are moving backwards through time, returning to Faenza for a second (and in the case of Kvyat, a third) term. In terms of grands prix contested this is, by a considerable margin, the most experienced line-up the team has ever enjoyed. But it also begs the question: why? Neither driver is there to have the rough edges knocked off - they've already been through that process.

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The most generous interpretation is strength in depth. Both in 2016 when Red Bull promoted Verstappen to replace Kvyat, and again last year when Alex Albon replaced Gasly, the senior team provided the thinnest of comfort blankets by using the logic of squad rotation. It holds the contracts for all of Red Bull's drivers and constantly evaluates who is best placed to drive for the senior team. It decides who - to extend the metaphor - needs a spell playing for the reserves.

Having been cast aside once before, they have arguably a steeper slope to climb now to get back into a Red Bull seat - but both Kvyat and Gasly's earlier experiences should make them better prepared for the ascent

While results justify Red Bull's decision-making in both instances, the drivers also have a reasonable case for feeling aggrieved. Having beaten Ricciardo in his first season with Red Bull, Kvyat was replaced just four races into his second. He gave the team its only podium of the young season two races before getting the chop.

Gasly, on the other hand, suffered the 'difficult car/difficult team-mate' imbroglio: driving an RB15 in which engine integration had taken precedence over chassis dynamics and thus featured a narrow performance window that Verstappen appeared able to wiggle through but Gasly could not. The organisation is not unaware of this and doesn't go out of its way to be cruel, so parking him at AlphaTauri benefits everybody in the long run.

The counter argument is that Kyvat and Gasly are driving for AlphaTauri because, if not them, then who? For many years the Red Bull production line ran so smoothly that supply exceeded demand. Such was the quality of the product, it was easy to be lulled into believing that this was a normal state of affairs.

High-quality performers such as Carlos Sainz Jr. decided to look elsewhere because there wasn't an obvious path to advancement, while further down the pecking order drivers such as GP3 champion Alex Lynn only saw a logjam ahead of them.

These things, however, are cyclical, and after the feast generally there follows the famine. Sainz and Ricciardo departed and the next batch of youngsters - the likes of Niko Kari, Sergio Sette Camara and Dan Ticktum - didn't quite hit the heights of their predecessors.

It led to the unusual sight of Jake Dennis, a Red Bull simulator driver but not a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, taking on testing duties when the team was mandated to run a rookie, and also to Brendon Hartley and Albon, former Red Bull Juniors, being invited in from the cold. The cupboard was bare.

This is, however, one of those occasions where the origins story doesn't really matter: Quite what shape that redemption takes is nebulous. Albon seized his opportunity in the second half of 2019, accruing comfortably more points in nine races than Gasly had in 12, and doing so under less advantageous circumstances.

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Perhaps more significantly, Albon's presence at the sharp end created greater strategy headaches for rival teams, providing Verstappen with a much-needed tailgunner. Doing this duly secured him the coveted seat for 2020, though before that happened, Red Bull gave every indication that the contest to be Verstappen's dancing partner was open to all three - and just those three.

"All the drivers that are under consideration are under contract, so we're in a unique position where we don't need to rush anything," said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. "We'll take the fullness of time to look and evaluate the progress of Alex and measure it against Dany and Pierre."

Whether that process is still in effect now that Albon has completed his probationary period is a matter of conjecture. Horner has suggested that his team isn't philosophically opposed to looking outside the Red Bull family in the future, but it wouldn't be its first choice.

Kvyat and Gasly's best chance of progressing their careers beyond the midfield still lies with a return to Milton Keynes. Having been cast aside, they have arguably a steeper slope to climb now - but their earlier experiences should make them better prepared for the ascent.

In that sense, the task for the AlphaTauri drivers is no different to that for the vast majority of the field. They need to beat their team-mate, deliver slightly more than is expected of them on track, contribute to the development of the car with solid feedback off it, and generally radiate positivity and enthusiasm when tasked with the thousand-and-one things racing drivers usually do with poor grace.

These are tasks Kvyat coped with poorly on his first return to Toro Rosso in 2016 but looked markedly better prepared for when handed another chance last year. While not quite the Damascene conversion, there was plenty of evidence that the Russian driver had experienced some personal growth during his sojourn in Ferrari's simulator - and he freely admits there's more to do.

"I'm looking to evolve personally," he says. "Every year I find something new that I can work on and improve, it's a constant evolution of myself.

"I feel like last year was a good one for me in terms of personal discoveries, understanding what works for me, what doesn't. I think in terms of my performance, I'm always quite happy with what I manage to squeeze out of the cars, but you always need to be ready to deliver your best and still think that you can always improve."

Kvyat may consider himself unluckily overlooked when a replacement for Gasly was required. At the summer break he was winning the qualifying battle against his rookie team-mate and was comfortably ahead in the points table. He'd recently had the bonus of a podium finish in Germany, embraced parenthood, and gave every impression of being a well-rounded human being at peace with his surroundings - which is a commodity rarer in the F1 paddock than many would suspect.

"I feel better prepared than last year. The way things went last year gave me a good understanding of what is needed to get the job done" Pierre Gasly

Counterintuitively, being a known quantity (and well-liked within Red Bull's garage and engineering set-up) perhaps counted against him: the team was keen to understand all its options ahead of 2020.

If he's still bitter, it doesn't show, and his comments now reflect a very strict focus on working with the team he has, rather than dreaming about the team he might like.

"2019 was a good year for me, with ten top-10 finishes and that podium in Hockenheim - but I wouldn't say I've set myself any specific targets for this year," he says.

"I want to keep doing what I was doing because I think you can always improve yourself. So, I'll keep working on that - my personal improvement as a driver - and try to get as many good finishes for the team to help secure a good position in the championship.

"Can we finish higher than last year? In terms of results, with a tight midfield battle it's impossible to predict, because things are so competitive so I would really struggle to say exactly where we'll be. But I'm sure we'll be fighting in a very tight group."

While Kvyat has been in this position for a while, for Gasly the experience is still fresh. He bounced back better than Kvyat managed in 2016, and looked a better, more capable driver once restored to the Italian team, even before the enormous fillip of a career-best finish on the podium in Brazil.

Back in September Gasly trod a fine line, expressing his disappointment and surprise at being shown the door when he believed he had more time - but equally not throwing himself under the bus by criticising the organisation.

"I'm sensible to all the chances they've given me in my career," he wryly said at the time. "There were things I could have could have done better, and I take part of the responsibility for the lack of pace and points we had - but I think we are all responsible for this lack of performance as well. I

"n the end there were some valuable lessons learned, and right now I need to move on and focus on what I can change."

Fast forward six months and it's a more sanguine Gasly stepping into the AlphaTauri.

"I feel better prepared than last year, as I have a bit more experience," he says. "The way things went last year gave me a good understanding of what is needed to get the job done."

The team finished sixth last year. That will be hard to follow, but both Red Bull teams have been adamant the Honda engine has taken a significant step over the winter. A good showing in the midfield - and occasionally putting one across on the senior team's rivals, is Kvyat and Gasly's best chance to impress the Red Bull hierarchy. It is also their best hope of completing their similar journeys of redemption.