McLaren believes their approach of being “very targeted” with young drivers leaves them “better off” compared to Red Bull.
Both teams have had their fair share of talented youngsters over the years, but none have had the turnover of Red Bull with 14 drivers reaching F1 before later leaving.
Of course, there have been successes, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, arguably current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz and their current superstar Max Verstappen.
But McLaren CEO Zak Brown doesn’t think Red Bull’s stable approach would work for his company.
“While it’s great that Red Bull has found Max, they have gone through a lot of talent to get there and a lot of expense,” he said last year.
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“I think we’re better off being very targeted. At this point, we are paying attention to what is happening in the junior formulae.
“We have a different philosophy. I think you do run into the problem, that the others have, where they have too many drivers and then they start to try to place them with other teams or they don’t have a seat available when their driver is ready.
“I think McLaren, especially with our recent progress, will always be a team that most drivers have a high desire to drive for, especially as we continue to progress.”
McLaren has seen a number of notable drivers come and go as well, including Giedo van der Garde, Nyck de Vries, Kevin Magnussen, Stoffel Vandoorne and most famously Lewis Hamilton.
But as Brown noted, the current number of drivers in their program is zero.
“We don’t have anyone really that is on a junior program at this point because, again, I don’t think we would really have a home for them,” the American chief explained.
“Lando [Norris] is very young (21), we’re just getting started with Daniel [Ricciardo], so to have a driver knocking down our door in a year or two, we’re not going to have room for them.
“So I think we are more strategic like we were with Lando. We found him early, as we did with Stoffel. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. It worked with Lewis.
“We just handpick a few when you kind of see they might mature at a time when you might have a seat available.”