Helmut Marko now looks like a hypocrite after suggesting Red Bull’s rivals are ‘afraid’

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Helmut Marko and Red Bull will soon have to make a decision on the future of Sergio Perez. There are just two races to go before next month’s summer break.

This is the last realistic opportunity to make a driver change that could have a significant impact. Red Bull are wary of losing out on the constructors’ championship, even if they look comfortable on paper.

The Bulls hold a 72-point cushion right now, with Ferrari struggling in recent races. McLaren and Mercedes, however, have been chipping away in third and fourth.

Since Perez’s spiral started at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Red Bull have scored 105 points, almost all of them through Max Verstappen. In the same period, McLaren have amassed 141, and Mercedes 142.

The Mexican has two weekends to reassure the team that he’s not going to cost them the title. If not, they will consider a change.

Liam Lawson appears the main contender to replace Perez, rather than Yuki Tsunoda. Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo hasn’t shown the kind of consistency to merit serious consideration.

Helmut Marko and Red Bull may be ‘afraid’ of young talent too

In a recent interview with Speedweek, Marko claimed that rival teams were ‘afraid’ of promoting young drivers and preferred to stick with ‘stagnating’ veterans. His philosophy is that short-term mistakes are justified by long-term potential.

“I can’t name any names, but there are drivers in the field who are stagnating and are better or worse depending on the mood,” he said. “They are blocking the way for the young drivers.

“The teams are also afraid of juniors. Of course they make mistakes, but I’d rather someone makes mistakes and has hope for the future than there being no further improvement.”

Following the formation of Toro Rosso (now RB) in 2006, Red Bull developed a ruthless conveyor belt. Drivers like Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Buemi, Jaime Algesuari and Jean-Eric Vergne arrived at the junior team and went no further.

Others, like Daniil Kvyat, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, impressed enough to earn a promotion but all lost their seats within 18 months. Only a select few – namely Sebastian Vettel, Verstappen and Ricciardo – were good enough to cement their places.

Carlos Sainz exposed the change at Red Bull in 2017

Once arguably the best talent factory in motorsport, the Red Bull driver programme is now in a state of dysfunction. In truth, there were warning signs long before the Milton Keynes outfit hired a 30-year-old Perez from Racing Point at the end of 2020.

When Carlos Sainz negotiated an early move to Renault at the end of 2017, Toro Rosso ended up fielding three different drivers in the last five races. Debutant Gasly was a promising young talent, but he was joined by Kvyat, demoted from Red Bull in early 2016, and a 27-year-old endurance racer named Brendon Hartley.

Hartley had been a test driver at Toro Rosso seven years earlier, and now he found himself in an F1 race seat for the back end of 2017 and the whole 2018 season, much to his own surprise no doubt. There was no young driver in the junior formulae deemed ready to step up instead.

Likewise, Christian Horner and co. couldn’t find a compelling in-house successor to Albon three years later. Perez has kept his seat for three and a half seasons since, and he could still stay put until the end of 2026.

To do so in the famous of consistent underperformance, relative to Verstappen, is a slight on Red Bull. Tsunoda has been one of the standout drivers in F1 this year, scoring points six times in the sixth-best car on the grid, but Horner is concerned that he won’t ‘survive’ alongside Verstappen.

Red Bull wouldn’t have let that stop them before. And whether their caution is sensible or not, it hardly seems appropriate for Marko to question the bravery of the team’s competitors.

They may paint Ricciardo’s return to RB as a risk given that he didn’t have a seat at the time, but now the narrative is that he’s blocking Lawson’s path. And based on his underwhelming displays, that seems a fair assessment.

Red Bull shareholders have made Liam Lawson demand

In Marko’s defence, he recently indicated that Red Bull would soon give Lawson a seat. This comes amid pressure from shareholders to make RB a team for young drivers again.

The New Zealander remarkably has a shot at jumping straight to the top team instead, depending on how Perez fares in the next week and a half. However, Lawson’s ‘underwhelming’ test at Silverstone won’t have helped his cause.

In truth, the seat should be going to Tsunoda. He’s completed 75 races now and reached his best-ever level while also demonstrating greater calmness behind the wheel, making him worth the gamble.

But if he continues to be ignored, he’d be wise to look elsewhere. And the same can be said for Isack Hadjar, Arvid Lindblad and Ayumu Iwasa if they don’t receive an offer in the next year or two.

With Kimi Antonelli potentially going to Mercedes, Jack Doohan in the running at Alpine and Oliver Bearman confirmed at Haas, there could be a wave of new rookies in 2025. If Red Bull want to be true to their DNA, they ought to be part of it too.