Red Bull won’t repeat past “mistakes” with Lawson, former driver predicts · RaceFans

Red Bull have learned from past mistakes not to put too much pressure on rookies, their former driver Christian Klien believes.

Liam Lawson will start his first full season as a Formula 1 driver this year at Red Bull. He will go up against four-times world champion Max Verstappen, who has overwhelmingly beaten each of his last three team mates: Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon and Sergio Perez.

Klien, who raced for Red Bull during their first season in F1, said Red Bull had no choice but to replace Perez. “For me, it was quite clear they had to change something,” he told The Business of Winning. “Checo just unfortunately didn’t deliver anymore.

“He had a great time at Red Bull Racing, but the last one-and-a-half years, it just didn’t click anymore. Mentally I think it was a difficult situation for him so they had to change something.”

Red Bull passed over their more experienced junior driver Yuki Tsunoda, who enters his fifth season in F1 this year, to promote 23-year-old Lawson, who has only started 11 grands prix. However Klien, who was 21 at the time of his F1 debut, said he “can understand” Red Bull’s decision.

He said Lawson must expect to play second fiddle to Verstappen in his first year in F1. “For Liam, if you get this opportunity, you have to grab it with with both hands. Everybody’s dream is to drive in a top team and a top car. The difficulty is you’re driving next to Max Verstappen.

“That’s now down to him. I think he has the talent, he is a really quick driver, he showed this. He can adapt very quickly. I think he is also mentally strong. But he has to go at this in a very clever way, I think.

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“He shouldn’t go into Red Bull Racing and think ‘I can beat Max Verstappen’ because I don’t think early on in his career that’s possible. He has to be a great number two driver, let’s say, now, learn from the best that Max Verstappen is at the moment and his time can come in the future. So again, it’s really exciting to see this year how he will handle the situation and how Red Bull Racing as a team helps him in this role next to Max Verstappen.”

Klien believes Red Bull have expected too much from their junior drivers in the past, including Daniil Kvyat, who they dropped early in 2016 to make way for Verstappen.

“I hope they don’t put too much pressure [on] him,” said Klien. “They made the mistake with Kvyat, with Albon, et cetera. I think they learned from it.

“What they need is a second driver who scores points and they can go for the constructors’ championship again.”

When Klien drove for Red Bull in 2005, the team took the unusual decision to rotate one of their seats between him and Vitantonio Liuzzi. Klien said Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko later accepted this had been an error.

“It made it very difficult,” said Klien. “Tonio and myself were sharing the car not only in the first couple of races, but also in testing. So we had half of the running off of David Coulthard, for example.

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“But that was a decision that was made by Helmut Marko and we made the best out of it in the end. Luckily later on I got promoted to do the rest of the season, which was crucial not only for myself but also for the team, because you cannot have three drivers in two cars, it just [doesn’t] work.

“I [was] quite happy to hear Helmut Marko a couple of years back, he came up to me and said Christian, I think that was quite a mistake that I did there, that you guys shared the car. So I’m happy that he realised it.”

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