(Motorsport-Total.com) – Liam Lawson had the shortest guest appearance in Red Bull history to date in 2025. The New Zealander was given only two races alongside Max Verstappen at the start of the season and was then replaced by Yuki Tsunoda again.
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The approach was criticized by many observers at the time, and then Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has now revealed that it was not his decision to send Lawson back to the sister team Racing Bulls so quickly.
“It was not my decision,” said Horner in the eighth season of the Netflix series “Drive to Survive.” He emphasizes: “I was always pushed to take drivers from the junior program. Helmut was a driving force behind it.”
Horner thus shifts the responsibility to Helmut Marko, who also left the Bulls at the end of last year. During his career, the Austrian brought the likes of Max Verstappen or Sebastian Vettel into Formula 1 via the Red Bull junior program.
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While the two won a total of eight world championship titles together for Red Bull, many other drivers promoted by Marko did not make the breakthrough. This includes Lawson, who had to leave the Bulls again after only two scoreless races at the beginning of 2025.
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Rumor has it, however, that it was not only Lawson’s sporting performance in Australia and China that led to his rapid demotion, but also his behavior behind the scenes. Marko himself later admitted that it had been “a mistake” to promote Lawson to Red Bull in the first place.
The New Zealander had replaced Sergio Perez for the 2025 season, but neither he nor successor Tsunoda delivered better results during the season than the Mexican had previously. Tsunoda also lost his cockpit at the Bulls at the end of the year.
In 2026, Isack Hadjar is now driving alongside Max Verstappen. Neither Christian Horner nor Helmut Marko now play a role in his future.
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