Companies tend to be like living beings — their first impulse is to stay alive. So we can understand how Sauber, the struggling Formula One racing team, came to make a midseason agreement with three Russian firms to get the cash to continue racing.

(Rumors had been circulating that Sauber was not paying suppliers or drivers.)

We don’t know the whole of what it is that Sauber promised those three companies, but one aspect of the deal apparently is this:

Sauber must do its best to put a kid, currently 17, behind the wheel of one of its cars for the 2014 season. A kid who happens to be the son of a guy who runs one of the three aforementioned Russian companies.

This has a chance to be a spectacular mistake.

Race drivers are generally impressed with themselves. Especially the F1 guys. But even most of them concede they were not ready for F1 when they were teens.

The kid, Sergey Sirotkin, will be 18 by this time next year, and if he has made a start by this point in the season he will become the youngest individual to start an F1 race, eclipsing a half-dozen guys who were 19 when they got their first ride. Of those six, only Fernando Alonso has had a successful career. One of them crashed in the first turn of his first race.

It should be noted that Sebastian Vettel also was not yet 20 (19 years, 349 days) when he made his F1 debut — but he quickly demonstrated he wasn’t just another kid by finishing eighth in that race, the 2007 U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis. (Vettel has won three championships, Alonso two.)

What is of concern pertaining to young Sirotkin is that he is not exactly tearing it up in the Formula Renault series.

Sauber, however, needed the cash, and the team’s top official today said the team is aware of the risk, as noted in the story in The National.

“Knowing that responsibility, we take it very seriously and we will do our best to prepare him,” said Monisha Kaltenborn, the Sauber team principal.

What Sauber has planned is an intense training program for the kid.

Perhaps what they are counting on/hoping for is that he fails to secure the “superlicense” from the governing body FIA — which is out of the team’s control. A failed test, a promise to keep working with the kid … maybe they can delay this till he is, oh, 19.

Buying rides in F1 is sadly common.

The 22 guys out there are not the 22 best drivers. Several of them arrived at their teams — teams that eternally bring up the rear of the grid — with a bag of cash from personal sponsorship. And teams with shaky finances will accept the money and put the guy in a seat.

Most, however, had greater credentials than does young Sirotkin.

Ultimately, F1 is a very dangerous sport, and sending out an under-qualified driver is dangerous to him but also to the rest of the field.

A story worth following.