WTF Happened to Scott Speed?

america land of the free home of the atlanta braves unfortunately when it comes to motor racing america's got you pretty well covered there's nascar indycar imsa you name it but if there's one thing that america seems to be lacking in motorsport it's formula one drivers the last american to compete in formula one was alexander rossi in 2015. and frankly that guy deserved a better shot but the last american to compete full time in formula one last raced in 2007 only for it to all go catastrophically wrong and was forced to make way for a future world champion who was this guy well sit back grab some popcorn and let me tell you a story [Music] so first things first scott speed what a name for a racing driver it's honestly up there with the likes of chris vanderdrift and uh dick seaman it does seem like a name you'd find in a team america movie eh well let's actually get back on track here born in california speed began his racing career in carts winning the sk usa super pro title in 2000 as well as three ikf titles he also won the rock island grand prix in 2002 one of the premier events for carting in the united states 2001 would see speed maker's car racing debut competing in the usa formula russell series a racing series so obscure its own creators probably don't remember it even existed this 2002 season was somewhat decent finishing third in the skip barber championship winning a couple of races five pole positions and getting a 70 hit rate for podiums he also raced part time in the star mazda series not a lot is known about his time in this series apart from getting two pole positions which is still more than what most armchair experts have including myself like many young drivers speed had formula one aspirations in mind and these ambitions would get a booster when the red bull driver search program poked its head out of the ground yielding an opportunity for any american drivers who may be ready to take on the world but to better explain what this program was all about i'll hand over to an american the red bull driver search program was a talent quest with the sole intention of having a consistent stream of americans racing in europe and ultimately end up on the formula one grid as the resident american to f1 here on youtube you'd think i'd be all over this but you'd be wrong the red bull driver's search program or simply the search as i'll refer to it henceforth was one of the more shamely attempts at tapping a market that's been the kryptonite to the top single-seater series since well ever and on its face it's really nothing new teams have committed resources to developing young talent long before and long after red bull's ill-fated attempt what made this unique was its focus specifically on americans it's one thing to have the objective of boosting underrepresented talent to even the playing field key word there being even but it's another thing entirely to focus just on where a driver is born for the sake of placement and this concept may not compute to danny sullivan the search program was his brainchild as it turns out which makes perfect sense the tyro washout turned 1985 spin and win indy 500 champion made his formula 1 debut as a result of tyro bending the knee to benetton he spoke with motorsport back in 2016 reflecting on his early debut in formula 1. and he was quoted in this speculating that benetin was looking to make a jump into the american market so they thought that an american driver would play well and i'm sure helped just a little bit that he had been backed previously on a whim by garvin brown heir to the jack daniels fortune in his 1980 can am campaign so with that in mind there was really no one better than danny sullivan to lead the search program sullivan's search program which officially began in 2002 was separate from the official red bull junior team whose roots began a year earlier the aim of red bull's junior team was to support promising young drivers and help them navigate the world of motorsport something that helmet marco who was running the show at the time was used to and had a great deal of experience with but as for sullivan this was new and it was pretty clear his plan was to have a group of americans compete for just a handful of seats that would be funded by red bull and their european efforts and as you can imagine the operation run by sullivan versus marco was slightly different it's now september 2002 the search has officially produced 15 names that will fight for the final four seats and now the only thing left to do was to go to paul ricard for the final program test but before they left all they had was some contract talk some red tape dotting the eyes crossing the t's simple enough right no big deal and if the drivers thought that they were in for a rude awakening before they hopped on a flight across the atlantic they first had to sign a long-term contract with red bull the first sign of trouble was the language in the contract it was famously considered by a source familiar with the matter as indentured servitude the contract was so bad that once the language leaked maximum sports the suits if you will of the red bull search program were forced to issue a second draft in that first embarrassing draft of the contract they tried to bully the drivers to signing the language stipulated that the drivers initially would compete for no pay and they were also responsible for all their own expenses and probably most alarming red bull had the right to change or just even outright cancel their contracts at the drop of a hat without any notice despite the issuance of the second contract which was a little bit better the debacle cost searched two of their most well-known and highly decorated drivers the remaining 13 drivers would undergo a multi-day test that was by all accounts full of unequal cars ever-changing standards and inconsistent judging not necessarily ways you wanted to set up a test to find the best for drivers one of the search program hopefuls phil gibler who was already in europe racing on his own with solid record reflected on the experience years later after doing considerably better than many of the applicants at the test he vividly remembers being called into the office and he was there told that he was quote too experienced they went on to explain he should have won by more and for that reason he wasn't selected years after this paul ricard test many of the applicants have come out and echoed the same sort of shambly tale of events but in the end four drivers of that 2002 search program were selected the class was made up of paul edwards who went on to race nissan world series grant mayman who went on to the formula renault 2000 masters joel nelson who went on to formula renault 3000 and scott speed who went on to british formula 3. given the sort of testing rigor and the selection process it's really no surprise that that class in the first year struggled the winners as identified by the red bull search program would go on to the european drives and struggle all that said the support for at least scott speed was still there it went as high up as the latter as you can possibly go with the boss himself christian horner who still was behind speed he was quoted as saying scott speed and colin fleming are the new wave of american talent that's coming through the search program ended swiftly after the acquisition of minority and no class was installed for the 2006 season scott speed would be the only search driver to race in an f1 car for red bull or its sister team red bull had their reasons for ending the program which you can actually find on the search program's website clearly it hasn't been touched in years but the eerily empty site goes on to describe the search program as providing an unparalleled opportunity to thousands of aspiring american race drivers okay unparalleled yeah that's generous thousands in a way sure thousands were exposed but certainly not given a fair shake to everyone it appears the program conveniently shifted the objective to quote placing an american at the pinnacle of world motorsport but in reality likely what happened was the search program left a considerable amount of young american drivers with the same feeling their sight or original mission statement holds abandoned but that said red bull clearly learned how to develop young talent they've identified some of the best juniors in recent history the american driver surge program really didn't contribute much to that but for a few young drivers it did provide a very brief window of possible f1 glory and for scott's speed it became a reality albeit short-lived and for every max verstappen there's dozens of joel nelson's colin flemings and scott speeds but we really don't talk about what happened to them or where they are as it turns out though speed's replacement was pretty decent so at least they got something right so with that in mind let's move on in 2003 speed would skip across this freaking big pond to partake in the british formula 3 championship speed took all the momentum he had in this time in america and got completely destroyed in britain and it wasn't as if he had a bad team either teammate will davidson proved to be decent in the same outfit having said that speed did fall ill that year with ulcerative colitis i'm pretty sure i said that wrong as a result he returned home to the us for treatment despite his condition worsening he would return to europe in 2004 to compete in the formula renault championship and boy did he impress driving with moto park speed would rack up 8 wins 9 pole positions 11 podiums in the euro cup alone with similar success in the german championship over there he got four wins three pole positions and 11 podiums now by all accounts this was a dominant display in a single season of junior racing following this the hierarchy of the red bull junior team thought this to be a golden opportunity to thrust him into the inaugural season of the gp2 series his teammate ken artem would only achieve one points finish throughout the season that being a seventh place finish at monaco on the other side of the garage speed had racked up one pole position as well as five podiums which led him to take third in the championship and was ahead of some pretty big names toward the end of the year speed was drafted into the usa1 gp team to drive at brandt's hatch euro speedway lousets and estoril by this stage speed had already participated in several practice sessions for red bull racing including at the canadian grand prix and at the united states grand prix despite this speed wasn't looked at for the main red bull seat for 2006 possibly because they felt he wasn't ready or maybe team principal gunther steiner was afraid he might fork smash his door however once red bull had purchased manadi two drivers were needed to occupy the seats the 2005 minardi lineup of christian albus and poor and tycoon baron robert dornbos were out in their place came vint antonio leotze who was shafted from red bull to make way for mark webber and the second driver announced that toro rosso was of course thereby making him the first american to compete full-time in formula one since michael andretti in 1993. everything in the lead-up to this was pretty good this guy had no shortage of accolades to back up his inclusion into the formula one grid his teammate leotzi wasn't much of a slouch either world carding champion formula 3000 champion and the man who beat michael schumacher at his home karting track but i mean hey you're here watching this video so you know it all turned to alright enough blabber the first two grand prix of the season was somewhat decent finishing 13th in the first grand prix in bahrain but he would retire in malaysia after the clutch lost the will to live yes lyoti had the measure of him for the most part although this is to be expected with speed being an f1 rookie the next grand prix in australia was somewhat different despite being outclassed by lyotzi for most of the weekend the support of the garage swiftly swung in favor of the american after lyotzi spun out in sixth place whilst battling former good driver jacques vilnerv speed who wasn't far behind at the time went past and into ninth place later on he would pass david coulthard and the red bull into eighth place scoring his and tora rosso's first points in formula one at least he initially did because later on speed would be summoned to the stewards for passing under yellow flare conditions sure enough 25 seconds was added onto his race time and he would be put back behind coulthard as a result speed took the snooze pretty well proceeding to tell coulthard too off most of the season after that didn't bear much fruit [Music] he had a decent run of the european grand prix but during the early stages of the 2006 season speed was losing the qualifying battle to leotze his engine gave up the ghost in spain and he retired on the first step of the british grand prix as well but he did have a decent outing in canada at this stage speed had been out qualified in almost every event in the lead up to his home race at indianapolis sure enough speed put on a good showing qualifying in 13th place laughing significantly faster than teammate lyoutzi but on that one he got caught up in an incident between juan and kimmy creating one big accident the resulting collision sawn into the americans outing although being american he probably would have felt at home in the sand but what really poured salt on the wounds for scott was that team antonio would score his first points of the season thereby becoming toro rosso's first point scorer something speed initially had at the start of the year and something he perhaps should have had in this race because whilst disqualifying left a lot to be desired his race pace was actually decent he would win the qualifying battle in france and was beginning to match the times of david coulthard and christian clean in the red bull racing outfit granted toro rosso probably had the better car at the time but speed was nonetheless beginning to spread his wings over the course of the rest of the season the qualifying battle was beginning to level out speed in the yachts you were going tit-for-tat and were both jurassic dc and clean in the main team there was a difference though take reliability out of the equation and there were some stark differences in their results namely speed finished as races sometimes whereas lyotzi didn't crashes spins and other adventurous shenanigans italians seem to love getting into played against tonio's results and he wouldn't exactly break this habit later on in his career his ego may have needed to been kept on a leash but he was showing glimpses of his raw speed while he eventually managed to beat lyotzi on a semi-regular basis the golfing performance between the two was sometimes indisputable and this probably played against him when it came time to announce the toro rosso lineup in 2007. by the end of january team owner gerhard berger stated that he hoped to announce the lineup soon but we would have to wait until the 27th of february for the team to announce the inclusion of speed into the second seat which is a tad alarming considering the first grand prix of that year was just three weeks later it looked for all the world that the italian outfit was looking towards sebastian bourdae and sebastian vettel for those seats again he would be driving alongside leotze and many were wondering what would become of the season while the answer was not much at least it wasn't bad before the european grand prix but first a quick recap on pretty much everything up to that point leotze had the measure of speed and qualifying trim for the first half of the season although speed was beginning to gradually call its way back into the fold by the time they reached the nurburgring his home race wasn't a terrific affair either slower than tony and finished two laps down france was better although his gearbox blew itself to pieces and the race in silverstone ended early due to a collision and then came the european grand prix this race was remarkable thanks to the monsoon that came down causing several drops to spin off at turn one after the surface was replaced with what seemed to be sheet ice button went off then suital then rosberg then hamilton and then speed litzy caught wind of this and joined him in the sandbox as a mark of respect unable to dig him out of that it was race over for him when he returned to the pits team principal france toss welcomed him back with open arms and a closed fist punching him in the middle of the back and then following him to the back of the garage grabbing him by the shirt and pushing him against a wall this set the tone for the rest of his time in toro rosso as you probably could have guessed tossed apologized profusely aware of the consequences of his actions but at this stage speed didn't care anymore he hadn't the stomach for formula one anymore sometime after this confrontation speed was replaced by fettel and his tenure in formula one came to an abrupt end overall his time at formula one wasn't especially remarkable but you can't exactly call him one of the worst drivers to ever grace formula one because he isn't but of course while his time in formula one came to an end his relationship with red bull lived on into the next chapter of his racing voyage nascar [Music] well firstly he competed in the arca series not quite nascar but still a pretty decent series he was in the title hunt until he found out why people don't really like ricky stenhouse jr too much being the cool headed californian that he is speed dumpster house following this speed would spend a few more years on ovals including a brief time where he raced with some pirates he had a brief campaign in formula e where he put on a stirring drive in the miami e priest where he almost took victory from nicholas prost but it was in the world of rallycross where speed would make his home winning four titles and collecting several medals in the x games so how do we sum up scott's speed really he gets a lot more stick than he probably should for a driver who has achieved quite a lot granted his time in formula one wasn't the best but there had been drivers like that in the past but speed certainly deserves a little bit more respect for his ability behind the wheel but it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for him there was something else during this time that cast a shadow over his name and that was what went on in eye racing a fair amount of professional drivers use sim racing games to sharpen their skills and iracing is one of the more popular platforms for this speed was a brand ambassador for the platform and he may still be i don't know but the point of all of this is that in 2018 he was suspended from the service for some shenanigans shall we say and so to round off this video i figured to show off these incidents in the most appropriate way possible [Music] cause [Music] now is the dream

Channel: Josh Revell

Views: 672,529

Keywords: Scott Speed, Speed, F1, Formula 1, Red Bull, Red Bull Racing, America, United States

Id: PlN6sV08Aps

Length: 18min 8sec (1088 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020