Marko floundering as his job is on the line – Red Bull racing have been atop the Formula One headlines at the start of a second season in a row. Last year the team was rocked with controversy over a female complaint against the team boss Christian Horner, this year the story is of their ruthless treatment of junior driver Liam Lawson.
Yet there are common denominators from both unrelated drama’s at Red Bull Racing and it is that Dr. Hamlet Marko os once again fighting for his job as the head of the Red Bull junior driver programme, the threat of sacking is now very real for the Austrian Red Bull boss.
Once the envy of the F1 field, the Red Bull driver academy has delivered the likes of quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel. The it was the turn of Daniel Ricciardo to slay the German’s domination of the team before Dr. Marko signed Max Verstappen with the promise he’d be driving a Toro Rosso before he was seventeen year’s of age, pipping Toto Wolff and Mercedes to the Dutch drivers’ signature.
Red Bull academy programme not delivered since Max
Yet since Max exploded on the F1 scene back in 2015 going to claim his maiden victory the following year in Spain, the week he was promoted to the Red Bull team, there has been little for the good doctor to be self congratulatory about having failed to find the next ‘big thing’ before rivals like Mercedes.
Mercedes took the exceptional decision to replace one of the most experienced drivers F1 has ever seen with a rookie, Kimi Antonelli. The young Italian has been part of the Mercedes driver development program since 2018 when he was eleven years of age and in preparation for his huge debut for the silver arrows, the team lined up an extraordinary testing programme last year under the FIA’s “Testing of Previous Cars” programme.
Unlike Lawson who was given six grand prix weekends as the Red Bull junior, Antonelli is claimed to have racked up some 60 days of testing and a whopping 10,000km to boot. The preparation appears to have stood him in good stead as he lies fifth in the drivers’ champion ship, ahead of both Ferrari’s.
Such was the paucity of talent emerging from Marko’s young driver programme, Red Bull changed tack and signed experienced Mexican driver Sergio Perez for 2021. Checo’s first three years with the team proved a success as he finished 4th, 3rd and 2nd in the drivers championship in each of his first three seasons. This saw Red Bull add to their four constructors’ titled won with Vettel but come 2024 and Perez struggled to drive an increasingly unpredictable RB20 car.
Marko on the juniors’ band wagon
Despite the sacking of Checo being announced after the season had finished, there were early indications that he would be replaced with Dr. Marko keen to promote his young drivers. Christian Horner by way of contrast believed that none of the Red Bull academy were ready for the job and held talks with Fernando Alonso, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz in an attempt at continuity by placing an experienced driver alongside Max Verstappen.
With Ricciardo dropped and lawson replacing him at the sister team, Marko began to bang the drum each week about juniors being the future for Red Bull Racing. “And now let’s see what our juniors or even a Yuki Tsunoda can do. He can also be described as a junior. But as I mentioned earlier, how does he compare to a Lawson?” Said Marko to Autosport.
He also praised France Colapinto and Oliver Bearman as examples of young drivers making the F1 grade. Several races earlier Marko was eulogising over one of the Red Bull juniors who had a great F2 race at the 2024 British Grand Prix. “Hadjar took the lead in the Formula 2 championship with his victory in the main race at Silverstone. We must not forget that he was also unlucky several times, otherwise he would have been miles ahead by now.”
“Lindblad, who went straight from F4 to F3 as a rookie is also impressing. He is only 16 and we are happy that 17-year-olds can now be admitted to F1 as well, but we remain calm,” said the Austrian.
Bizarre Alpine request to the FIA
Tsunoda: “Quantum leap”
Week in and out Marko would use the lack of form of Perez and Ricciardo as a platform to promote his and other junior drivers as the future of F1. Since the sacking of Lawson, Dr. Marko has been doing the rounds giving interviews each day on the current state of affairs with the Red Bull team. His first remarks called the decision to promote Lawson in the first place, a “mistake” which Marko was keen to reveal at the time was a ”unanimous” decision. This flew in the face of comments made by Christian Horner last December who said the choice between Lawson and Tsunoda was tight and was made by a “split decision.”
Marko did admit his shout over failed Red Bull driver Nyck de Vries was something Christie Horner had not agreed with. Yet as McLaren, Ferrari and Aston Martin stacked their 2025 driver lineups with experience, Red Bull decided one of their own would suffice.
With Tsunoda now rightfully in place alongside Max Verstappen, Marko has now leaked the information that Adrian Newey had petitioned for Tsunoda not to be signed to the team. The 81 year old Austrian goes on to describe the “quantum leap” made this year by the Japanese driver, even though the season is just two race weekends in.
Of course this justifies the swap the Red Bull team have now made and again kind of justifies Marko who blames Newey for this not happening first time around. Whilst Marko has been doing his publicity tour, Christian Horner has remained silent, bar one three paragraph statement on the day Lawson was dropped.
Marko threatens to walk away
Should Yuki fail to make the grade then Marko’s cupboard is once again bare and his hopes rest upon another unproven kid called Arvin Lindblad.
With the Red Bull driver academy not delivering and Marko backing the wrong on of his steeds, questions will rise again to the surface as to how useful the good doctor is to Red Bull’s endeavours besides keeping Max Verstappen happy.
Marko did confirm this week should Verstappen leave for Mercedes in 2026, he would walk away from his role as Red Bull young driver mentor in a heartbeat. “That could be a good reason,” said Marko when asked if he would leave Red Bull were Max to find pastures new.
Without reigniting the internal civil war within the Red Bull team, a decision must be taken over Marko’s future. He is not delivering top F1 drivers for the team and is a destabilising factor when discussions turn to Max Verstappen leaving Red Bull Racing.
Horner’s silence may be a precursor to some detailed revelations in Japan over the Lawson saga. Then again he may choose to let Dr, Marko hang himself with his own rope, given the good doctor is always looking for some publicity to promote his cause.
Lawson sponsor makes shocking “suicidal” claim
RB21 design: the “opposite” of Newey’s recommendation
For the first time since Adrian Newey joined Red Bull the year of its inception, the Milton Keynes based Formula One team have designed a car without input from the guru engineer. Having announced he was leaving Red Bull and taking a sabbatical, within weeks the call of team ownership and a huge dollop of cash and Newey was signed to Aston Martin.
Adrian had not been the technical director of Red Bull Racing since resigning the position back in 2018, when Frenchman Pierre Wache was placed in charge of the day to day technical operations of the team. Newey worked part time and gave input into design issues, as and when, which led to Christian Horner to emphasise on more than one occasion during their dominant 2023 campaign, that Newey was not purely responsible for creating and developing thre Red Bull F1 cars.
“Adrian is a big part of the team and our achieved performance. But of course his role has evolved over the years and the technical team under him, led by Pierre Wache, is doing a great job. They are not dependent on Adrian,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner to AMuS in 2023. “Adrian has the ability to come in, go out and work on other projects. I think that’s part of the evolution of any team.”… READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
