Christian Horner seeks to refute the statements made by Helmut Marko. Earlier this week, the 81-year-old Austrian hinted that former Red Bull chief engineer Adrian Newey had influenced the decision to choose Liam Lawson late last year. Newey was reportedly not a fan of Yuki Tsunoda, who was also in contention for promotion to the main team at the time. However, according to Horner, Newey never exerted influence on the line-up.
On Sunday, Yuki Tsunoda will make his long-awaited Red Bull debut during his home race in Japan. The 24-year-old driver was previously promoted after Liam Lawson disappointed in the first two races of the new season. According to Horner – and Marko – the team could not afford to give the New Zealander any more chances. The fact that Tsunoda did not immediately move up to Red Bull this year was partly due to Adrian Newey, according to Marko. The aerodynamics guru, who now works at Aston Martin, was reportedly vehemently against Tsunoda’s promotion.
“Tsunoda had the image for a long time that he was not consistently performing and made stupid mistakes here and there,” Marko explained. “That happened last year in Mexico, just when we had to make a decision about Pérez’s future. But in principle, the final decision can be attributed to one incident; Tsunoda once hit Pierre Gasly’s car at Silverstone, and the debris on the track subsequently damaged the bottom of Verstappen’s car – as a result, he lost the race.”
‘Newey Had No Influence’
“Adrian Newey was furious at the time,” Marko revealed. “From that moment on, Yuki Tsunoda was like a red rag to a bull for him. But now that Newey is gone, Yuki has worked hard on himself.” Amanda Newey, the wife of the top designer, has already responded to Marko’s statements via social media: “How could he have influenced the line-up? He was no longer working for Red Bull,” she wrote.
Team boss Christian Horner also contradicts Marko’s words. In the run-up to the Japanese Grand Prix, he stated that Newey had nothing to do with the distribution of seats within Red Bull. “Newey was certainly not involved with the drivers for this year,” the Brit assured. “He had no influence on our line-up.”
