Helmut Marko comments 'don't make sense' as Adrian Newey's wife calls out Red Bull chief

Amanda Newey, wife of former aerodynamics guru , has publicly called out after the Austrian advisor suggested that her husband was one of the major roadblocks preventing from securing a promotion from the squad. After learning alongside Pierre Gasly during the first couple of years of his career, Tsunoda developed into one of the midfield's greatest talents.

He dominated the intra-team battles against Nyck de Vries and Daniel Ricciardo and emerged favourably from his fight against Liam Lawson in 2024. Despite his inarguable results, Tsunoda was overlooked by Red Bull when searching for Sergio Perez's replacement at the end of the 2024 campaign. Instead, the Milton Keynes-based squad called up Lawson, who he had beaten six-nil in qualifying that year.

"For a long time, Yuki had the image of not performing consistently and making silly mistakes here and there," Marko explained to Kleine Zeitung ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. "This happened last year in Mexico, for example, where the decision-making phase began for us.

"With Lawson, it was initially the exact opposite. He came and delivered immediately, no matter how much pressure there was. In hindsight, however, it wasn't the right decision. In general, however, a lot can be attributed to a single incident.

"Tsunoda once drove into Pierre Gasly's car there (at Silverstone), and parts of the cars on the track subsequently damaged the underbody of Verstappen's car, which caused him to lose the race. Adrian Newey was furious at the time. From then on, Yuki was a red rag to him. But now Newey is gone, and Yuki has worked hard on himself."

Newey's wife was not pleased with Marko's comments and jumped onto the X social media platform to defend her husband. "That doesn't make sense," she posted. "He was on garden leave." She completed the post with an eye-rolling emoji.

Marko's comments about Newey's opposition to Tsunoda are part of a larger conversation about the 81-year-old heading into the weekend. The decision-making behind Liam Lawson's exit from Red Bull after just two races has sparked widespread controversy.

Despite promoting Tsunoda out of the blue, Marko opted against communicating directly with his driver. "Surprisingly, [he] didn't call me yet," the Japanese racer explained on Thursday. "Very unusual. So, I'm not sure if he was busy with other things.

"I can't wait to see him, how he's going to react to me [moving]. But yeah, it's very unusual. From F3 to F1, he was always calling me, but this time he didn't call me. So, I'm sure there's not anything from his side. We have still a good relationship, so let's see how he reacts to that."