The driver thrust up Red Bull's junior queue

Rarely does a driver go from having no money to being in with a chance of a future Formula 1 seat in under two months, but that's exactly what has happened to Patricio O'Ward in 2019.

The 20-year-old Mexican driver has been catapulted head-first onto a stunning new career trajectory in the last 12 months, but he really came into the mainstream motorsport spotlight last weekend when it was announced he would replace the mercurial Dan Ticktum in the Red Bull-backed Team Mugen Super Formula seat.

Double Macau Grand Prix winner and 2018 European Formula 3 title contender Ticktum had been ousted from the Red Bull junior programme run by the energy drink giant's motorsport advisor, Helmut Marko. That news came on a weekend where 'Pato' was already enjoying extra exposure as he was making a surprise Formula 2 debut at - fittingly - the Red Bull Ring.

After winning the IMSA SportsCar Championship's single-make Prototype Challenge class alongside James French in 2017, last year was O'Ward's real breakthrough. He coupled the Indy Lights title with that IndyCar debut at Sonoma, where he qualified an incredible fifth for minnow Harding Racing and delivered a ninth-place finish.

It then all got a bit complicated when he signed to race in IndyCar full-time this year with the reformed Harding Steinbrenner Racing. It became apparent that his deal included only three races with Honda power, and so the deal was reneged and a search for a new seat was initiated.

Then came the move that likely changed his career forever. Carlin Racing had an opening with potential, despite the team entering just its third full-season of IndyCar, and it signed O'Ward to share a car with Charlie Kimball.

In the past, Carlin has run many Red Bull junior drivers, including current F1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr, and that means team owner Trevor Carlin has built quite the relationship with Marko. Over coffee in the spring, Marko asked Carlin if he knew of any tidy drivers in the States, and the answer was simple.

"I said 'actually there's a fabulous kid called Pato O'Ward'," Carlin tells Autosport of how O'Ward's Red Bull deal came about. "'OK, get him to call me,' said Helmut."

"There was a race coming up, Long Beach, so he called him and I've left them to it since. I'm not his manager, I just wanted to help the kid out. I do believe in the kid. He has a lot of natural talent."

Earlier in the season, Carlin compared O'Ward to rookie McLaren F1 sensation Lando Norris, who progressed from MSA Formula all the way to Formula 2 with Carlin's eponymous team, and is therefore a driver he knows well.

But all that natural talent - a term that came up again and again when relevant parties were straw-polled about O'Ward in Austria last weekend - is yet to produce a headline result in IndyCar this year. This may cause some over on the European side of the pond to wonder what exactly Red Bull has been impressed by and what it's investing in.

The Marko call led to a Red Bull factory visit after Long Beach in April, and soon after in May O'Ward's deal to join the famed junior programme was done

"He's been good for the team, but unfortunately we've not had the big result we'd hoped for," Carlin explains. "We did well in COTA and I thought it was going to get better and better, and it hasn't quite happened yet.

"I don't think people realise how competitive it is. You've got three Penskes, three Ganassis and effectively five Andrettis because of [Harding-Steinbrenner driver Colton] Herta. The top 10 is top quality cars.

"The fact that we've been in the top 10 in qualifying with Pato four times now shows that the car isn't a million miles off. We were only a tenth and a half off pole in Detroit. I don't think we're a million miles off, just needing some decent luck. You look at Scott Dixon, he can fall to dead last and finish P4, so it can be done."

Although that headline race result has eluded O'Ward so far in IndyCar - his best was the eighth at Austin that Carlin mentions and he hasn't been back in the top 10 since - he shares the view that the team has, in fact, bettered expectations rather than underperformed.

"The Carlin guys have been giving it their all, just like I have," says O'Ward. "But it is a new team. There is quite a big difference between the teams that have a lot of experience, like Penske, Andretti and Ganassi, to the teams that don't have a lot of experience.

"We are the youngest team in the paddock. It's been really hard. We've been really competitive in some qualifying sessions. To be within a tenth or two and sometimes beating the Penskes, Andrettis and Ganassis is huge. It shows that the competitiveness and speed is there.

"I think people haven't quite seen the amount of competitiveness we've had this year, they've just seen the end result. It's just whenever we could have capitalised, we didn't.

"Either something goes wrong, or a little mistake is made. I think with what we have we've done a phenomenal job. I know a lot of people who have watched and understand the process would agree. What we've been able to achieve with this little amount of knowledge compared to the big teams who have 20-plus years of experience and knowledge is huge."

The Marko call led to a Red Bull factory visit after Long Beach in April, and soon after in May O'Ward's deal to join the famed junior programme was done.

It would be understandable to think - based on his relative lack of experience - that O'Ward is part of a three or four-year programme to challenge for an F1 seat, but that's not how he sees it. He envisions an opportunity coming much sooner than that, and he intends to take the fact that a closer F1 chance has even been discussed with Red Bull as a case of positive entitlement, something that is there for the taking if he delivers moving forward.

"This deal was done looking on to Formula 1," says O'Ward, without a pause to reflect on the distance he has come in the last 12 months - he wasn't even an Indy Lights champion or IndyCar driver at this stage a year ago.

"Everything was signed based on the possibility of a Formula 1 seat. The biggest issue now is getting my superlicence points. The focus is to get the points as quick as we can. It is focused to Formula 1 and it's something you only dream of as a kid."

Few would have predicted this time last year that Alex Albon would be recalled to the Red Bull set-up to take a seat at Toro Rosso. But the fact was that all of its existing juniors were not good enough or not ready, or both. O'Ward comes in at a time where if he can use that 'natural talent' to genuinely impress Marko, it really isn't out of the question that he could make it to F1 the season after next, when he will likely have enough superlicence points.

The Austria F2 feature race result wasn't what O'Ward needed, given his impressive fellow Red Bull junior Juri Vips won in front of a delighted Marko on the same day

It seems his last four months have been defined by phone calls, another one coming a week before last Sunday - when he was given the order to jump on a plane to Austria to take on F2 with MP Motorsport in place of the banned Mahaveer Raghunathan.

It's a tricky series, which doesn't always reward the fastest driver or best qualifier - things O'Ward has proven to be very good at being in his career so far - but usually the most intelligent, best all-round driver comes out on top in the end.

A good base set-up is key, with only a few changes realistically possible given just a single practice session takes place before qualifying on F2's short schedule. But the biggest thing is managing the Pirelli tyres, which must be done purely on feel, without computers or sensors on the car to supply the driver with a constant stream of information during the race weekend.

O'Ward, perhaps worryingly, didn't seem to think the Pirellis were going to be too much of an issue for him.

"I think for qualifying they will feel grippy to get a lap in like any tyre, the hardest thing will be the management during the race," he said ahead of the on-track action. "For qualifying, I'll just go as fast as I can and get them up to temp as best as I can. That will be the biggest learning curve.

"I think the tyre will be something similar to racing a Firestone red [IndyCar's softer option] for like however many laps. The degradation is quite similar. I shouldn't be that lost about it, especially on one lap pace."

On the second point, he banged in a definitely not unrespectable lap in qualifying, ending up 0.2s off fellow IndyCar driver and temporary F2 team-mate Jordan King in 17th place. But that was despite conducting no sim work and not having driven the track before practice.

But the race was a different story where O'Ward admitted he got an "ass-whipping", dropping a total deficit to the leader of over a second per lap.

It wasn't what O'Ward needed, given his impressive fellow Red Bull junior Juri Vips - who already has 27 superlicence points - ended a six-race winning streak for Prema Racing team in FIA Formula 3 by putting a Red Bull-liveried car first for Hitech Grand Prix, smack bang in front of a delighted Marko, on the same day.

But what that F2 debut did do was offer a chance to get some great insight into O'Ward's character.

Instead of stropping or lashing out at the team or those around him - as other Red Bull junior drivers have been known to do in the past - he knuckled down, ingested data, and tapped up King for advice on how the car is different to the Dallara they use in the USA.

Sunday's sprint race was much better. He took 14th in the order in what is far from the best car on the F2 grid.

"I thought that was a lot better," he says, back with a smile on his face. "Obviously it's not where we want to be, but I think it was a major, major leap forward and we could actually race.

"It will help to start further forward next time, and obviously just keep getting better and better. I end the weekend a lot happier than what I was [after the feature race]. I was unlucky in the last few laps, where a few people pitted and had fresh tyres. If it wasn't for that we would have been around the top 10 mark - that's great [from] starting last.

"You do this to enjoy it. I'm always going to want to win - but the most important thing is to enjoy and love what you're doing because if you don't, why are you doing it?" Patricio O'Ward

"A few tools I didn't use in the first race made a big difference. I moved the brake bias around and [focused on] braking points, I just tried to manage it better."

In many ways, O'Ward is the opposite of many of the drivers Marko likes - the ones that are outspoken, self-confident to the point of fringing on arrogant, fiery in the cockpit and never scared to criticise teams, championships, or anyone, publicly. He may have elements of these characteristics, but his come across as more palatable self-confidence - there's no fear of looking inward to expose weakness to then combat it. He's not scared to admit he's had an ass-whooping, and even less deterred from working hard to reverse an outcome in the face of adversity.

His new squad Team Mugen will love that attitude when he ships out to fill Ticktum's Super Formula seat later this month. That will be another learning curve.

"[Super Formula] is somewhere where I can get quite a bit of seat time and work on my technique and get better overall," says O'Ward.

"I get to go to a different country I've never been to before - I'm sure the culture is quite different. But it's exciting, I like to travel and see the different places and culture. There's nothing more international than F1 so it's good practice and I'll just enjoy it.

"You do this to enjoy it. I'm always going to want to win - but the most important thing is to enjoy and love what you're doing because if you don't, why are you doing it?"

Austria is unlikely to be the last time O'Ward will be seen in Europe either. It looks like he won't contest the three IndyCar races remaining on his schedule, in favour of Super Formula and some more F2 outings. The latter is his favoured route for next year if he fails to get enough superlicence points for any 2020 F1 opportunity.

"The ideal thing - if I don't get the superlicence this year - what most likely would happen I assume, is to do Super Formula or F2 [next year]," he says. "I think Formula 2 is a better way to go because I don't know any of the [F1] tracks, so it would be great practice to get to know the tracks and tyres at Formula 1 events."

It's clear there are bags of natural talent in O'Ward's locker. Gaining superlicence points and track experience are probably going to be key to how quickly he progresses towards F1, but the fact Marko and Red Bull did this deal, which unusually came after the start of the season, means there's faith.

Japan awaits next and Super Formula is very difficult championship, which has a new car that is tough to master for the teams and drivers. But O'Ward's F2 debut, and indeed his career so far, proves he'll be quick and will work extremely hard to get the best out of the situation.

If he makes it work and impresses enough, Toro Rosso could be the next step on his career ladder. But make no mistake - despite the hype and the journey he's been on already in the last year, going from where he was a year ago to a place on the F1 grid will be a gargantuan task to complete.