Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko says the recent driver swap that brought Yuki Tsunoda to Red Bull Racing and sent Liam Lawson back to Racing Bulls took into consideration performance clauses that could allow Max Verstappen to leave the team.
The move is the earliest that Red Bull has ever changed drivers during a season, and Marko said the team’s priority is winning the drivers’ championship with Verstappen, acknowledging that a failure to secure good enough results could open the door for the Dutchman to leave.
“We have this huge motivation to achieve this fifth title,” Marko told the BBC. “We also know that if we don’t deliver for Max, all the top drivers have performance clauses in their contract, so we have to make sure he gets a car where he can win. There was a very constructive meeting last Thursday, Max with the engineers, and they discussed how to go forward to improve the car and make it more drivable and to have a wider range of drivability, and all that went very positive.
“It’s just two races. We are eight points behind [Lando Norris] and the whole team is focused to achieve this fifth title – which we didn’t make with [Sebastian] Vettel, but this time there is a possibility. If you look at the lap times from Max on the hard tire [in China], we were competitive — not everywhere like the McLaren, but we are not so much off as it looks sometimes.”
Verstappen is understood to have been supportive of Lawson and was against a change so early in the season, citing the difficulty driving the RB21 as central to the New Zealander’s struggles. However, Marko said it was clear Tsunoda has more confidence and experience to lean on at this stage of the year.
“RB21 is not the fastest car, but nevertheless very difficult to drive,” he said. “Max can handle it but not — in this stage — Liam,” Marko said. “We were worried his self-confidence is so damaged that he couldn’t bring his normal performance.
“Tsunoda made a big step. 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.
“On the other hand, we have two drivers for the constructors’ championship but also to support Max strategy-wise — if you have two drivers top five or eight, it is easier to max a strategy that favors the number-one driver.”
Marko said Tsunoda will be given until the end of the season alongside Verstappen, despite the quick decision to replace Lawson.
