The Red Bull Junior Team – the driver development program run by the energy drink company – has selected four new recruits for 2018.

The lucky winners have all been poached from the karting ranks and include 14-year-old Norwegian Dennis Hauger (pictured here), British racers Johnny Edgar and Harry Thompson – 13-years-old each and Aussia Jack Doohan, the 14-year-old son of motorcycle legend Mick Doohan.

All will be competing in CIK-FIA karting world championships held in Nottingham, great Britain this weekend.

As the youngest, Edgar and Thompson will remain in karting next season, but Hauger and Doohan will graduate to the British Formula 4 series with the Arden team.

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“There are certain times when there appears to be many potential future stars and other times when there isn’t,” recently said Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner.

“In the junior formula I don’t currently see many great talents, except for a few in F2, in F3 or GP3. We therefore decided to go back to the roots and recruit the best young racers in karting.”

Among the young hopefuls, Dennis Hauger is a standout. The Norwegian is managed by former racer Harald Huysman, who once looked after Jenson Button and also discovered Kimi Raikkonen, before handing him over to the Robertson family.

Red Bull missed out on several promising young guns such as McLaren junior Lando Norris, or Mercedes protégé Georges Russell, both winners respectively in F3 and GP3.

Red Bull’s former wave of young drivers didn’t exactly send sparks flying, with several, like Finnish driver Niko Kari, have already left the company’s driver program.

Unfortunately, Richard Verschoor, Dan Ticktum and Neil Verhaegen could follow the same route.

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