Red Bull senior adviser Dr Helmut Marko says he stands by his decision to drop Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda after two races into the Formula One season, ruling out another driver swap.
Lawson was brutally demoted from Red Bull after underwhelming performances in Australia and China, and sent backto sister team Racing Bulls, swapping places with Tsunoda.
The decision hasn’t yielded the success that Red Bull expected, with Tsunoda struggling, while Lawson produced a career-best sixth-place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend.
Those eight points for finishing sixth saw Lawson jump above Tsunoda in the drivers’ championship, with the latter only scoring just seven points in his nine races with Red Bull.
Speaking to Sky Germany, Marko doubled down on his decision to axe Lawson, shutting down the possibility of Red Bull reverting to its early-season driver line-ups for its two teams.
“Absolutely, because Lawson was also completely exhausted. He needed a few races to recover, now he has defended a sixth place brilliantly against Fernando Alonso with a one-stopper.
“I think he would not have stayed on his feet next to Max either.”
There are no guarantees Tsunoda will still be with the team at the end of the season, with Red Bull ending its relationship with Honda as an engine supplier.
Red Bull have said they will give Tsunoda time to settle in the car, something Lawson didn’t have the luxury of.
“Yuki lacks self-confidence,” said Marko. “We have to think about how we can stabilise him so that he performs throughout the weekend, which he partly shows in free practice.
“He had that dangerous crash in Imola. It is now a sum of negative events, but the speed is there. We see that in the practice sessions, but when the pressure is on, that changes.”
