Marko: There's nothing unusual about replacing Lawson.

      In your column for speedweek.com Helmut Marko, Red Bull's motorsport consultant, talked about replacing Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen's car.

      Helmut Marko: "On the first race weekend in Australia, Liam's turbine failed and he couldn't complete a lap in the third practice session. At that moment, Liam felt the pressure and started making mistakes.

      This trend continued in China, so we needed to act quickly before Liam lost his confidence completely. Don't forget that his career isn't over, he's back at Racing Bulls, a team that consistently fights for points, where the car is much easier to drive, and where he's not compared to Max Verstappen.

      One of the problems that the experienced Sergio Perez could not handle last year is related to the features of our car, which is difficult to drive and effective only in a very narrow range of conditions. Lagging behind the leader by two to three tenths further complicated the situation.

      In general, Lawson's confidence had decreased, it was obvious, and trying to increase his speed, he was starting to make mistakes.

      There is nothing unusual about replacing Lawson: we have already done this with Pierre Gasly and Alex Elbon, both of whom still compete in Formula 1 as accomplished drivers with excellent careers.

      Of course, there are many know-it-alls who will ask, why didn't we choose Tsunoda from the very beginning? The reason is that Yuki's career often had ups and downs, he was not stable. But now he has made a leap in his development, including in terms of physical fitness, and today Tsunoda is a real athlete.

      Yuki showed impressive results in the first two race weekends. What Lawson excelled at in the second half of the 2024 season, we now see in Yuki.

      It's just a coincidence that the team's promotion change for Honda's protege Tsunoda took place just before the home race in Japan at Honda's home track. Of course, Yuki knows this race track well, but Lawson also knew it well. This was not the decisive factor.

      Let's talk about the competitiveness of Red Bull Racing cars. After two race weekends, we can say the following: the RB21 is inferior to the McLaren, this car is difficult to drive and not easy to set up.

      In the second part of the race in China, when we set Hard, Max's car started working – he drove at the pace of the leader or even faster. However, in fairness, it should be added that the leading Piastri was not driving at full speed at that moment.

      The mistake we made is related to the segment on Medium. Considering the high wear during the only training session and in the sprint, Max was too careful. Now it's clear that he should have gone faster.

      After returning from China, we held a meeting in Milton Keynes to understand how and when Red Bull Racing will have a winning car again. Max talked to the engineers, they showed him the chosen direction of development of the car and told him about the next steps to refine it.

      Racing Bulls started the season well in terms of speed, but they didn't score any points in China – the team made a mistake with the strategy. It was worth dividing the strategy of Tsunoda and Hajjar, so that one would lead the race with one pit stop, and the other with two.

      The strategy wasn't perfect in Melbourne either, as the cars stayed on the track for too long. We made two very serious mistakes that cost us 15 points.

      The good news is that Racing Bulls cars consistently score points, even if they are not as strong in the race as they were in qualifying.

      In China, shortly before the finish, the front wing of Tsunoda's car collapsed. This wasn't supposed to happen. We are still investigating whether this was caused by an external impact, say, from some debris on the highway, or whether it was a defect in the node itself.

      As for the results of Yuki and Isaac in the first two weekends, we can say that Tsunoda was impeccable, very fast in qualifying and strong in racing. Hajjar made a mistake in Melbourne on a slippery track, but he was surprisingly strong in qualifying. In China, he probably would have earned his first points if not for a failed strategy. For me, Isaac is one of the surprises of the first part of the season. He hadn't performed in China before, but he was riding at Yuki's level right away – I'm impressed."