Max Verstappen subtly indicated his view of Red Bull’s extraordinary decision to drop his team mate after just two grands prix when the team announced the decision a week ago.
He endorsed a social media post by fellow Dutch racer Giedo van der Garde which described the decision as being like “bullying or a panic move.”
One week later, Verstappen was unwilling to give any further indication of his views on the matter, keeping his counsel when pressed over whether Red Bull made the right call to replace Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda so early in the season.
“I’ve discussed everything with the team, so the team knows how I think about everything,” he told the official F1 channel. “And I think that’s enough, to be honest.”
The world champion said it was “not necessary” to give his thoughts on the wisdom of Red Bull’s decisions first to promote Lawson after just 11 starts, then cut him loose after two appearances for them on tracks he hadn’t previously competed at.
“Honestly, some bits we discussed, they don’t always need to be told in public as well,” he said, “because anything that you add people start speculating about that as well and I don’t like to read about it.”
Verstappen will know how these words are likely to be interpreted: namely, that he wouldn’t keep schtum if he had anything positive to say about the situation. That ‘like’ on van der Garde’s social media post did the talking for him.
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However his new team mate said he found it hard to accept the team’s original decision to promote Lawson instead of him. “For me at least, it was brutal enough last year at the end of the season when they chose Liam over me,” said Tsunoda.
“It is what it is. I’m sure Liam also understands how quickly things can change within our structure. That’s one of the reasons we succeed, but also one of the reasons why we tend to get a little more attention with those situations.”
Tsunoda also revealed that Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko, who plays an active role in hiring and firing drivers from the top team, has not spoken to him in the week since his promotion was announced.
“Surprisingly, he didn’t call me yet,” said Tsunoda. “It’s very unusual. I’m not sure – maybe he was busy with other things.
“I can’t wait to see him and see how he’s going to react to me. It’s very unusual. [In] F3, F2, F1, he’s always been calling me but this is the only time he didn’t.
“I’m sure there’s not any [problem] from his side. Even in the last few races, we’ve still had a good relationship. We didn’t have any moments between us.”
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But Red Bull’s slump in form remains Verstappen’s focus. While he has been able to extract results from the car, and heads into the third round of the season just eight points off the championship lead, his past two team mates struggled with the peculiarities of their car’s handling.
Although he suspects Red Bull’s car may be trickier to drive than others, Verstappen said it’s difficult for him to judge given his experience.
“I’ve been part of the team now for a long time, so for me, it’s always a bit more difficult to judge because I haven’t really driven any other car,” he said. “So naturally, I don’t know how much more difficult or how much easier another car is, I just drive to the limit of what I have with the car. And that’s that really.
“That it’s not the easiest [to drive], probably, yeah. I think we always discuss things we can do better on the car and that’s what we are working on currently as well.”
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