{"id":229041,"date":"2025-07-01T10:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T10:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229041\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T10:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T10:23:09","slug":"helmut-marko-issues-yuki-tsunoda-update-as-liam-lawson-surges-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229041\/","title":{"rendered":"Helmut Marko issues Yuki Tsunoda update as Liam Lawson surges ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helmut Marko \u201cabsolutely\u201d stands by the decision to drop Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda, despite the Racing Bulls driver surging ahead of Tsunoda in the standings.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Lawson was Red Bull\u2019s first choice to partner Max Verstappen in the F1 2025 season, the New Zealander struggled in the second RB21 and, as his head dropped, the team made the call to send him back to Racing Bulls and promote Tsunoda.<\/p>\n

Could Red Bull swap drivers again?<\/p>\n

The decision hasn\u2019t yielded the success that Red Bull<\/a> expected.<\/p>\n

Tsunoda has scored just seven points in his nine races with Red Bull, and currently sits on a four-race streak without a single top-ten result.<\/p>\n

His Grand Prix weekends are coming undone in qualifying as the Japanese driver hasn\u2019t once featured in Q3 in the last five race weekends.<\/p>\n

Lawson, meanwhile, is finding his feet after a slow start to his Racing Bulls return. Scoring points in two of the last four races, including a P6 at Red Bull\u2019s home race in Austria, he\u2019s surged ahead of Tsunoda in the Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/a> with 12 points to Tsunoda\u2019s 10.<\/p>\n

Marko, though, has shut down the possibility of Red Bull reverting to its early-season driver line-ups for its two teams.<\/p>\n

More on the Austrian Grand Prix<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Austrian GP driver ratings: Norris\u2019 perfect day and Tsunoda\u2019s latest Red Bull nightmare<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Austrian GP conclusions: Verstappen\u2019s Mercedes guarantee as Russell\u2019s words come back to bite<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA driver change doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d Marko told Sky Deutschland<\/strong>, adding that it was the right decision to replace Lawson with Tsunoda.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would not have stayed on his feet next to Max either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 82-year-old believes Tsunoda\u2019s biggest problem is a lack of self-confidence, with the driver faltering in key moments when there is pressure to perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cYuki lacks self-confidence,\u201d said Marko. \u201cWe have to think about how we can stabilise him so that he performs throughout the weekend, which he partly shows in free practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also weighed in on Tsunoda\u2019s struggles after a \u201chorrible\u201d Austrian Grand Prix<\/a> finished with the 25-year-old last in the classification, having been lapped twice by the race winner McLaren team-mates.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we\u2019ll look to see how we can support him, but there\u2019s a big delta between the two cars,\u201d Horner told the media, including PlanetF1.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, internally, we ask all of those questions that, no doubt, you ask in terms of, why.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the car has evolved over years in a specific direction, but we\u2019ll see if we can help Yuki and rebuild his confidence in Silverstone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsunoda is out of contract at the end of this season and faces an uncertain future in Formula 1 as Isack Hadjar is already being linked to the F1 2026 Red Bull race seat.<\/p>\n

Read next: Mercedes issue F1 2026 driver decision update as Verstappen rumours swirl<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Helmut Marko \u201cabsolutely\u201d stands by the decision to drop Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda, despite the Racing Bulls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,227,225,228,12,1084,226,79,16,15,860],"class_list":{"0":"post-229041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-helmut-marko","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-liam-lawson","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-racing-bulls","16":"tag-red-bull","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-yuki-tsunoda"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114777490256143576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}