"He's not being demoted — he's moving to Racing Bulls, which has a very competitive car, much easier to handle than the RB21," Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com in early spring, after Red Bull decided to replace Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda in its main squad. Marko was adamant this was not the end of the road for the New Zealander.
"The change happened after a start that I’d say was rather unfortunate," he added, citing Lawson’s issues during pre-season testing in Bahrain and his struggles in the opening races. "The third practice session in Australia was cancelled, and that’s where the problems began. That naturally affected Liam’s confidence.
