Red Bull and Sky Sports haven’t always seen eye-to-eye recently. The tensions between the media outlet and the Milton Keynes-based team escalated meteorically back in 2023 when Ted Kravitz used the term “robbed” to describe Lewis Hamilton’s title loss to Max Verstappen in 2021.
This led to a huge hue and cry from within Red Bull, with the team even boycotting Kravitz and his colleagues for a brief period to support their driver. But that hasn’t stopped the British broadcaster from pinching the nerve when he feels he needs to investigate further.
He had yet another stand-off with Red Bull recently, after the Chinese GP, when the team decided to demote Liam Lawson back to their sister team, RB. Kravitz was in conversation with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner when he seemingly pushed the limits with a question.
On the Pitlane Life Lessons podcast, with former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley, Kravitz recollected the moment he asked Horner a “cheeky” question about terminating Sergio Perez’s contract in favor of Lawson to then only to go and demote the Kiwi racing ace back.
BREAKING: Yuki Tsunoda will replace Liam Lawson at Red Bull from the Japanese Grand Prix#F1 pic.twitter.com/FCXUOyoBBZ
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 27, 2025
“I said, ‘Do we have a Liam problem?” and he just battered it away with a kind of Oh well, you know he’s been unlucky,” began Kravitz. Kravitz then pushed the point further by highlighting how Red Bull had decided to pay Perez millions just to be able to terminate his contract.
The team justified their decision by explaining how Lawson is likely to perform significantly better than Perez, which will help Red Bull in the Constructors’ standings and repay them with higher prize money. But Lawson’s 2025 season started off on a disastrous note as he was unable to score a single point or even qualify out of Q1. Red Bull lost patience with him after just two rounds as they decided to replace the New Zealander with Yuki Tsunoda.
“I said yeah, but hang on, you didn’t pay off Checo for this. The idea was that you weren’t getting the points you needed for the constructors’ championship. You needed to replace Checo with a driver who you felt was going to be quicker and score more points,” he added.
This rubbed Horner the wrong way, who then responded with a cold shoulder. “He kind of gave me a look and then said well, we’ll talk about it after the race,” concluded Kravitz.
Kravitz was quick to qualify this anecdote by saying that he has nothing but immense respect for Horner and his achievements in the sport. In fact, Kravitz said that he feels the same way about everyone working in the paddock because to be at the pinnacle of motorsport, one needs to be the absolute best.
Kravitz also clarified that his prodding nature of questions is only to justify his own job. He wants to give the full picture to the fans watching back at home, and it can only be done by asking uncomfortable questions in hopes of getting an honest response. Safe to say, Horner and Red Bull aren’t really big fans of Kravitz’s approach.
