{"id":23252,"date":"2024-08-24T05:04:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T09:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=23252"},"modified":"2024-08-24T05:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T09:42:21","slug":"christian-horner-shuts-down-lawson-f1-guarantee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/24\/christian-horner-shuts-down-lawson-f1-guarantee\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Horner shuts down Lawson F1 guarantee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Within less than a day of the F1 action returning in Zandvoort, Red Bull&#8217;s driver situation is stealing the headlines. Helmut Marko recently claimed that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/22\/lawson-given-red-bull-guarantee-hell-be-in-one-of-our-cars\/\" target=\"_self\">Liam Lawson<\/a> has already been allocated a place on next year&#8217;s grid. However, not for the first time in recent months, Christian Horner has contradicted the 81-year-old. The Red Bull team principal says that a decision hasn&#8217;t been made for next year.<\/p>\n<h2>Christian Horner: Red Bull yet to make 2025 commitments<\/h2>\n<p>Throughout the last few months, the narrative surrounding Red Bull&#8217;s driver pairing has changed on several occasions.<\/p>\n<p>From offering Perez a two-year deal in June to setting a form of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/07\/helmut-marko-sergio-perez-doesnt-need-to-get-faster\/\" target=\"_self\">ultimatum before the Belgian GP<\/a>, the reigning Champions have shown very little clarity about their situation.<\/p>\n<p>Even within the team, persistent disagreements are clear within the hierarchy. Helmut Marko and Christian Horner often make opposite statements, especially regarding <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/22\/ricciardo-targets-red-bull-drive-says-lawson-deserves-a-seat\/\" target=\"_self\">Ricciardo<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/19\/red-bull-prepare-bold-steps-to-improve-sergio-perez-form\/\" target=\"_self\">Perez<\/a> and Lawson.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Sky Sports in Zandvoort, Horner refuted Marko&#8217;s claim that Lawson is guaranteed a seat next season:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Nothing is fixed. At the moment, we&#8217;ve still got a few weeks to make those decisions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"QFs6eLv_QGdESS4vwXURhg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2168058126\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'QFs6eLv_QGdESS4vwXURhg',sig:'c7xfPeo4A3MsxOpi7e-21c6YTEyrlX9rEGjMdzeqvq0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2168058126',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Obviously, we know the situation with Checo, and the contract that he has.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;With Daniel and Liam, there are options within their agreements that, obviously, we won&#8217;t talk about in public until things are concluded.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Of course, these quotes do not necessarily mean that Helmut Marko&#8217;s comments are incorrect. It is plausible that Horner wants to keep an element of ambiguity about Red Bull&#8217;s plans rather than giving everything away.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, there is an obvious divide within the Austrian outfit. Red Bull have demonstrated an inability to put someone alongside Max Verstappen capable of matching his level.<\/p>\n<p>Since Ricciardo left for Renault in 2019, the Austrian team&#8217;s decisions on driver pairings have been questionable at best. With <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/08\/23\/f1-news-mclaren-bring-the-most-upgrades-to-dutch-gp\/\" target=\"_self\">rival teams making rapid progress<\/a>, they cannot rely on the same performance advantage that overshadowed this issue in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>As ever, the situation at Milton Keynes is unpredictable and likely to evolve in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Within less than a day of the F1 action returning in Zandvoort, Red Bull&#8217;s driver situation is stealing the headlines. Helmut Marko recently claimed that Liam Lawson has already been allocated a place on next year&#8217;s grid. However, not for the first time in recent months, Christian Horner has contradicted the 81-year-old. The Red Bull [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":23253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,3],"tags":[2220,681,68,465,1755,78],"class_list":["post-23252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-christian-horner","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-liam-lawson","tag-red-bull-racing"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}