Helmut Marko admits Red Bull “made a mistake” promoting Liam Lawson too soon

Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko – often an outspoken and unflinchingly honest critic of, er, the team’s own drivers – has lifted the lid on the decision to drop Liam Lawson just two races into the season.

Having been promoted to Red Bull off the back of just 11 races with the junior RB squad, the New Zealander qualified 18th and then crashed out of the curtain-raiser in Australia. Then in China last weekend he qualified last twice, and could only recover to P14 and P12 in the sprint race and grand prix.

Speaking to BBC 5 Live Breakfast, Marko explained that Lawson had been unlucky in the build-up to the season with reliability issues restricting his practice time, but that “as soon as he started pushing, he made mistakes”. He added: “RB21 is a car which is not the fastest car, but nevertheless very difficult to drive. And Max can handle it, but not – in this stage – Liam.”

Ouch. And it gets worse. “We were worried his self-confidence is so damaged that he couldn’t bring his normal performance.” Yowzers.

Marko went on to say that the team desperately needs two drivers fighting at the front, not just to fight for the constructors’ title but also to help Max Verstappen win world championship #5. In fact, the Austrian makes it sound like Red Bull’s main priority.

“There’s so much motivation to achieve this fifth title,” says Marko. “And we also know if we don’t deliver to Max, I mean, it’s no secret all the top drivers have performance clauses in their contract.” In other words, if they don’t give him a winning car he could saunter off to a rival team in 2026. Jeez.

Quizzed on if the team was embarrassed by its decision-making, Marko again got straight to the point: “Inside I would say yes. We made a mistake. But again, [Lawson’s] not kicked out of Formula 1, and with Racing Bulls they will give him the chance to recover, and his career can start again.”

Next question: with Yuki Tsunoda stepping up to fill Lawson’s barely warm seat, how come the Japanese was the wrong driver to replace Sergio Perez when the Mexican was axed, but is apparently the right driver now? “Tsunoda made a big step,” reckons Marko. “It’s strange after four years. And now in his fifth year he’s a much stronger personality. He changed his management. He’s far more mature.

“He has more confidence and he did do very good races [in Australia and China], it’s just the strategy didn’t work at Racing Bulls. But in this case with a very difficult car, experience is something which will help.

“And when we made the decision [to fire Checo] last year in Mexico, he had two major crashes and he was not consistent in his performance. But obviously over winter it changed. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s fact.”

Apparently Tsunoda now has until the end of the season to prove himself. That long, eh?