Helmut Marko has confirmed that Liam Lawson will not be drafted back to Red Bull to replace the struggling Yuki Tsunoda, saying the Kiwi was “completely exhausted” after his disappointing two-race Formula 1 stint with the team.
Tsunoda endured another torrid weekend for the Milton Keynes-based squad at the Austrian Grand Prix, languishing down the tail end of the field, fighting for position with Franco Colapinto.
His tussle with the Argentinian did not end well, punting the Alpine off the road at Turn 4, receiving a 10-second time penalty for his troubles.
The Japanese has continuously found it difficult to produce any discernible performance in the RB21, and whilst the car has been noted as being uncompetitive in comparison to its more recent challengers, Max Verstappen has still managed to win two Grands Prix and sit third in the Drivers’ Championship.
Lawson produced his best performance and result of the year so far, qualifying and finishing in sixth place, managing to stay on the same lap as eventual winner Lando Norris, with Tsunoda two laps down.
When asked by Sky DE if Lawson, who Tsunoda replaced after just two races, could make a return to the main Red Bull outfit, Marko quashed any possibility of this.
“A driver change doesn’t make sense,” he said. “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.”
Marko stresses need to ‘stabilise’ Tsunoda’s ailing confidence
Marko addressed Tsunoda’s current difficulty in extracting sufficient performance from the RB21.
Despite being knocked out in Q1, his lap in the session was only two tenths down on Verstappen’s at that point, suggesting a drive through the field was possible.
But with Verstappen retiring on Lap 1, and therefore the hopes of the team pinned on Tsunoda to recover, he produced an underwhelming display, for which he later apologised to the team for.
Marko believes that his one-lap pace early in a race weekend is decent, suggesting his huge qualifying accident in Imola has contributed to a confidence crisis when things get tough.
“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.”
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