Often, the Red Bull decision-makers have been accused of being too ruthless with their drivers, as brought to light by the Nyck De Vries saga recently. This includes the likes of Christian Horner and even chief advisor Helmut Marko. This environment is often labeled as unforgiving by people outside of it. However, former Red Bull driver Christian Klien recently revealed that Marko once made a pretty big mistake, and gracefully admitted to making one.
Klien was one of the first so-called ‘Red Bull prodigies’ and was a member of the team from 2005 to 2006. Nevertheless, he was involved with F1 prior to that, joining Jaguar in 2004 alongside Mark Webber. After being sold, Jaguar ended up being rebranded as Red Bull. With Klien in the team along with Webber and Vitantonio Liuzzi, things often took a toxic turn in the Milton-Keynes-based outfit.
Since there were only two seats available at Red Bull with Webber filling one, Klien had to fight with Liuzzi for the other seat and things turned really ugly at one point. The competitiveness between Klien and Luizzi demoralized the team, and according to the Austrian driver, it was Marko who instigated this.
Admittedly, Christian Klien was the first driver to experience this hostile Red Bull environment. Nevertheless, this particular approach of Marko’s has often brought out the best in drivers such as Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.
Christian Klien opens up on Marko’s mistake
Christian Klien, recently appeared in the Beyond the Grid podcast by F1. There, while speaking to Tom Clarkson, the 40-year-old emphasized on the cutthroat situation at Red Bull during his time here, and how it was Helmut Marko who was the brains behind it.
When Clarkson asked Klien if Marko did this intentionally, the former said yes. “But I think it was wrong. It was definitely wrong. And it’s a good thing and I’m happy about it.” Following this, he added, “2-3 years back, Helmut [Marko] admitted that this was a mistake. So I feel even better now.”
But in the end, the Hohenems-born revealed that he got the chance to drive regularly in the second half of the season. With that Marko admitted that he was wrong with his decision eventually. The Red Bull chief advisor realized that he made things very complicated for his drivers.
Fast forward to the future, however, it can be said that Red Bull have often been ruthless with their approach. They have sacked drivers like Daniil Kvyat, Pierre Gasly and most recently Nyck De Vries midway into a campaign.
Red Bull continued their tradition with the Dutchman
Red Bull has one Dutchman in Max Verstappen who is at the top of the world at the moment, with two back-to-back title wins. On the other hand, their other driver who hailed from the Netherlands didn’t fare to well at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri. After a series of poor showings, Horner and Marko finally decided to part ways with De Vries. They decided to bring back former Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo to replace Verstappen’s compatriot.
Admittedly, De Vries failed to live up to the expectations with multiple drivers waiting to snatch his seat. The 28-year-old was comprehensively slow compared to his younger teammate Yuki Tsunoda and had no significant performance to convince Marko of his ability.
Prior to this incident, no driver was sacked midway through the season since Pierre Gasly in 2019. With Nyck de Vries being removed from his position and Ricciardo being brought back, Red Bull’s ruthlessness when it comes to driver evaluation was at full display once again.
