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Formula 2 race winner Juri Vips will make his Formula 1 weekend debut driving for Red Bull in the opening practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix.
There are new regulations in place this year aimed at giving more seat time to young drivers on grand prix weekends.
In two FP1 sessions over the season, every team must have each of its cars driven by a driver who has not competed in more than two F1 races.
Red Bull has chosen this weekend’s race in Spain to tick off one of those sessions, with Vips driving in place of Sergio Perez.
Vips is Red Bull’s nominated reserve driver so this is a good opportunity for the team to ensure he has experience of the RB18 should he be required at any point in place of Max Verstappen or Perez.
He has two days of official F1 testing under his belt, having driven for Red Bull in the end-of-season Abu Dhabi test in 2020.
Vips’ fellow Red Bull junior Liam Lawson is expected to drive for the brand’s second team AlphaTauri in FP1 at some point this season.
Vips won’t be the sole FP1-only driver this weekend as Nyck de Vries will make his F1 practice debut for Williams while Robert Kubica will pilot the Alfa Romeo.
Obviously, the vastly experienced Pole will not satisfy the rookie requirement – his outing is part of his reserve and development driver role at the team.
Alfa Romeo still needs to field one more ‘rookie’ in FP1 this season.
F1 debutant Zhou Guanyu qualified as one driver earlier this year so Alfa Romeo just needs to place a young driver in Valtteri Bottas’s car at some point, with protégé Theo Pourchaire the most likely candidate.
