Mark Webber says he is not surprised by Red Bull's "harsh" decision to drop Daniil Kvyat in favour of Max Verstappen.
Red Bull announced on Thursday that it would switch the two drivers, with Verstappen taking Kvyat's seat at the senior Red Bull Racing squad and the Russian re-joining Toro Rosso.
Webber, who raced for Red Bull Racing between 2007 and 2013, reckons the basis of the switch goes beyond Kvyat's first lap disaster at last week's Russian GP.
"It was probably on the cards even before Russia, so in a way you probably feel there was something brewing," Webber told media on Friday.
"They’ve done it – let’s see if Max can break Red Bull records again. He’s got no choice. He has to be ready.
"[Kvyat's] had a year and 30% there in terms of time. They don’t believe that he’s done enough – in their eyes he hasn’t done enough and they see that one other guy is doing enough.
"Normally you wait until the end of the year but obviously you know that doesn’t happen sometimes, particularly with Red Bull.
"They change it whenever they feel – bang.
"[Red Bull motorsport advisor] Helmut [Marko] just wants performance, he wants to put the fastest guys in the best scenario as quick as possible.
"People just say that the mistakes that Dany made, it was off the back of that, but obviously it was accumulating to a point where they were not overly happy with his performance in the build-up.”
While Webber says the decision to drop Kvyat is harsh, he believes it's motivated by Red Bull's efforts to lock down Verstappen ahead of Formula 1's silly season.
"Yeah, I feel it’s harsh but it’s a big business and things move fast and I think also again getting ahead of the ’17 market a bit, making sure everything’s ready," he added.
"It’ll be a complete non-topic in six months as usual in F1, even three months. Everyone moves on. In Formula 1 you have nowhere to hide."
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