Helmut Marko reckons Red Bull made a mistake with Lawson

Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has spoken out about Liam Lawson’s struggles of late in a recent interview on BBC 5 Live Breakfast.

We know of Lawson’s ‘form’ in the season’s openers, which has seen him demoted back to Racing Bulls. 

Marko explained during the interview that Lawson had been unlucky with reliability issues hampering 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. We were worried his self-confidence is so damaged that he couldn’t bring his normal performance.” 

Marko made the point that the team needs two drivers at the front of the pack to help Max Verstappen win his fifth world championship.

“There’s so much motivation to achieve this fifth title,” says Marko. “And we also know if we don’t deliver to Max, it’s no secret all the top drivers have performance clauses in their contract.”

Quizzed as to whether Red Bull got it wrong with Lawson, Marko said: “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.”

And what makes Yuki Tsunoda now the better candidate for the seat? “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.”