Wherever Juri Vips next appeared on a motorsport grid, it was going to be controversial.
After he ultimately lost his place in Red Bull’s Formula 1 junior driver programme for using a racial slur, everyone will have their own opinion on whether he deserves a second chance such as the opportunity for an IndyCar future with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing that he’s just been given.
It feels remarkable to me that this is the situation Vips is in now.
A German Formula 4 title win led to a strong full maiden European F3 campaign in 2018 – in which he beat the likes of Marcus Armstrong and Alex Palou no less – and when he then switched to FIA Formula 3 he was often connected to an F1 drive through the mid-part of 2019.
Prema dominated that first F3 season with a new car, but Hitech driver Vips was clearly best of the rest for the majority of the year – battling his now new Rahal team-mate Christian Lundgaard, then at ART, to get attention outside the Prema-run cars.
Sadly his season unravelled at Spa and then especially Monza, undoing any hopes of a quick F1 trajectory, but he was still the top non-Prema driver that year.
Since then it’s all felt tough for Vips, who had a weird 2020 season in Formula Regional and a handful of F2 races subbing for Sean Gelael before a return to Hitech yielded sixth in 2021 and 11th in a 2022 season overshadowed by the racial slur.
Without that, who knows if it would’ve been Vips not Liam Lawson standing in for Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri right now. He could be auditioning for an F1 future, not IndyCar, had things been different.
On the racing side, there’s no doubt in my mind that Vips is every bit as talented as any of the F2 graduates who have moved to IndyCar in the last few years. His aggressive style should really suit the IndyCar and he compared favourably against Lundgaard – who is now an IndyCar winner – in junior formula stints.
Whether he deserves this redemption chance is another topic altogether, but it was clear from the press conference with Bobby Rahal that every eventuality in terms of how to approach the signing of Vips had been carefully considered.
Rahal immediately addressed it.
“I think Juri is just a very nice young guy,” he said. “We were introduced to him a couple of years ago. It’s no secret that he made a mistake and paid a huge price, but people in Europe who I knew were very, very complimentary about him as a driver and as a person.
“This mistake was a single mistake. Unfortunately, as we all know, Juri paid a huge price for that and lost his position in the Red Bull system, which he was the preeminent junior driver in at the time.
“A person I respect a great deal in Europe, from a driving standpoint, gave me a great evaluation of him, and we thought it would be worth giving him a shot.
“So he did a test for us at Sebring, and then, of course, also at Barber this last year.
“Juri is a good person and made a huge mistake.
“I think he has really atoned for it through some of the diversity training programmes that he’s been involved with both in England and here in the United States.
“In fact, the same organisation that Kyle Larson went to [RISE], and we felt that they were very good in their field, and Juri has been going through that programme. I think he has completed it now.
“He has known he made a big mistake, and he has paid for it, but now he’s trying to come back.
“So we’re pleased to give him that second chance.
“He has shown us enough for us to take that chance, to give him a shot, and he has certainly worked hard to correct the mistake that he made. So we’re excited about him joining the team for these last two races, and hopefully he’ll do well.
“No pressure, Juri; right?”
Vips knows how big an opportunity this is, especially after what he did and after spending almost 12 months on the sidelines.
He did not shy away from addressing his actions, either.
Asked how he is different from the person who made that mistake last year, Vips responded: “After everything happened last year, I asked my team at the time, Hitech, to do some kind of course for me to understand what’s offensive and what’s not because I made this huge mistake without knowing it’s such a big mistake.
“I thought it was just a swear word that I was saying.
“I wanted to know more about it, first of all, just so nothing like this can happen again because I don’t know what else I don’t know, you know?
“Then, I had a lot of time to reflect on who I disappointed. I had so many fans, so many people cheering for me, so many people that helped me through my career, and I just threw it all away because…before this I wasn’t interested in learning about anything. All I cared about was racing.
“That’s why I thought the word that I said was a swear word and not way worse than it actually is. Since that I’ve learned a lot.
“I took two sensitivity courses. One in the UK, and we decided with Rahal here it’s good to do a refresher course as well.
“Things might be a little bit different in the US, it’s a different company, and that’s definitely helped as well just to get a different perspective on things.
“I definitely learned more in the RISE programme that I just completed here.
“I feel like I have grown as a person, but yeah, I am really grateful for the second chance, and I completely understand all the outrage.
“Now that I understand what the word means, it’s [the outrage] completely justifiable, and I am very sorry for everybody that I’ve hurt.”
Vips said that he didn’t even look for a Formula 2 seat in 2023 because he wanted to come to IndyCar and that’s where he sees his long-term future. He’s also turned down some endurance opportunities because he felt he’d be at risk of being stuck on the outside of the single-seater world for his future.
RLL has dropped Jack Harvey for the last three races in order to assess options – Conor Daly was its top performer at Gateway last weekend on his debut with the team – and now Vips gets the last two races.
We’ve seen what someone like Linus Lundqvist – who hadn’t raced an IndyCar a month ago and now looks set to get the series’ best car at Ganassi for next year – can do with two stand-in drives.
Vips will have a similar chance because he certainly impressed RLL in his two tests with the team. I’m not surprised because Juri’s best attributes are his raw speed and ability to drag laptime out of the car. He’ll be able to do that without the restriction of a melting F2 tyre to take care of in IndyCar.
Getting this drive doesn’t guarantee him the 2024 seat. Sponsors will have a big say in how this deal goes down after Vips’ past, and Rahal confirmed he is talking to other drivers in the series about the seat too.
One way Vips hopes to help his situation is by using his new platform to raise awareness about education and showing what he did was wrong and that it must not happen.
“I haven’t made full plans of what I’m going to do exactly, but when I was going through this programme, it was Andrew Mac Intosh who helped me with this. He is from the RISE programme that I just completed,” explained Vips.
“He really mentioned that I should sort of spread my knowledge of what I’ve learned and stuff, and I really agree with him.
“I just completed the course, so I haven’t exactly thought of what I’m going to do, but yeah, I think people have learned already because they’ve seen what I’ve done, but I do want to spread what I’ve learned from the sensitivity programmes.
“Just be a model citizen from now on. Leave the past behind me and grow. That’s my main thing.”
Vips was always one of my favourite drivers to chat to in the paddock and I always enjoyed his company.
Speaking in your second language is never easy, but then there’s no excuse for using the slur he did and now he has been educated, he knows that.
You might feel that a person given a second chance who then spreads the word of their mistake in a bid to educate others has served his punishment and deserves the chance to right his wrong through those actions.
Or you might believe that what he did can never be forgotten. Only you can come to your own conclusion.
The one thing that I don’t think can be argued is that Vips is every bit as good a driver as the F2 racers who have come to the US in recent years, and he has the attributes to adapt to IndyCar well.
The next two races will give us a huge window into the future – on and off the track – for Vips.
