By
April 11 2006

According to Autosport Online, Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz has given DC's chances of retaining his RBR seat next year a major boost, but things are not looking so comfortable for Christian Klien, who is under pressure to match DC's race pace.

Although Christian has performed well in qualifying, beating his more experienced team mate 2 to 1 so far this season (adding to his 8 qualifying victories of 2005), Mateschitz is not impressed. When asked directly whether they expect Klien to do more to match DC he replied "That is correct. We need two strong drivers. The benchmark is the race."

He went on to compare the two

"If you look at 2005, David got 24 points and Christian nine. Even if you consider that Klien did not compete in four races, that remains the position.

"We expect from a young driver that he shall be as quick as David. It has to be the goal for Felipe Massa to be as quick as Michael Schumacher, and Nico Rosberg must equal Mark Webber, at the latest in his second year."

"If we invest say 50 million dollars ­into a wind tunnel, into Ferrari engines and to get Adrian Newey, and the benefit of all this makes the car one second quicker, it simply cannot be that a driver loses that second in comparison with the other."

"So the logical consequence will be that we need the quickest driver we can lay hands on for 2007, when we shall run with the first car under the guidance of Adrian Newey. I expect that the Ferrari engine will be reliable then. The driver cannot be the weakest link."

It is no secret that Red Bull are keeping a watchful eye on the driver market, but with Alonso already signed at Mclaren, and Schumacher, and Raikonnen unlikely to consider a move to Red Bull, he feels his options are limited.

"After those three there is a slight gap and then you have drivers such as (Juan Pablo) Montoya and so forth," he said. "But bluntly, they are second choice."

"Our long-term plan is to have one or more drivers among our talent search programs being able one day to be among the best four drivers in the world. The effort to find such a driver is quite big. Can it be Klien? (Scott) Speed? (Vitantonio) Liuzzi?"

"Perhaps it is too early to tell. Then we have (Michael) Ammermueller, (John) Edwards and (Neel) Jani. Sebastian Vettel is on loan to BMW for two years."

"But we all know how quick David Coulthard can be, when he is fully motivated. He still has it and he is extremely keen on driving a Newey car again."

When asked whether he would rank Coulthard in the same bracket at Montoya, who has been strongly linked with a move to Red Bull Racing, Mateschitz said: "Yes, I do."