Red Bull has definitively put the Helmut Marko era behind it

In all fairness, Racing Bulls had no choice but to extend Liam Lawson’s contract. It would have been incredibly unfair to let Lawson go after an excellent season. The New Zealander has emerged this year as the leading challenger to the top teams; a driver like that deserves a place on the F1 grid. The now-experienced Lawson is also an excellent benchmark for Arvid Lindblad, who has impressed in his debut year as well.

By indeed extending both contracts, Red Bull has made it clear that it has moved on from the once highly successful approach of the Helmut Marko era. The second team in the Red Bull family is no longer made up of talents who are either promoted to Red Bull Racing in the near future or ruthlessly cast aside.

At last, Racing Bulls is a team where the best drivers race in the hope of achieving the best possible results.

In recent years, Red Bull Racing has continually searched for the next Max Verstappen through Racing Bulls (and its predecessors). But there is no such thing. The result, nonetheless, was that one young driver after another was mentally broken before being thrown on the scrap heap. Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon know exactly what that means.

At the same time, Red Bull headquarters has wanted Racing Bulls to become more financially self-sufficient for some time. In other words, the team needs to generate its own revenue and rely less on handouts from the parent company. One way to do that is simply to perform well.

The higher the team finishes in the constructors’ standings, the more millions it brings in. This season, Lawson is helping his team climb to fifth place in the championship almost single-handedly. The New Zealander has scored more points on his own than Alpine, the team in sixth place behind Racing Bulls.

With Nikola Tsolov, who would have replaced Lawson had the New Zealander’s team been dropped, it would have been a question of whether Racing Bulls could finish fifth in the championship again. If Helmut Marko had still been in charge, that would not have mattered. His philosophy was all about developing, developing and developing drivers.

Without Helmut Marko, even that has changed.