Red Bull Junior Reveals Helmut Marko’s Bizarre Choice of Timing to Make Him an Offer

Dr. Helmut Marko often has his own style of getting exciting news across to Red Bull drivers over vacant seats in the Formula series. Earlier this year, it was Daniel Ricciardo, who revealed the moment he received the much-awaited call from the Austrian.

Now, only months later, Liam Lawson, one of the drivers who took part in the young drivers’ test in Abu Dhabi representing AlphaTauri, opened up about the bizarre timing Marko chose to initiate talks with him over a potential seat in Formula 3.

Lawson revealed that this phone conversation happened back in 2019 when he was at his girlfriend’s house. It was apparently 5 in the morning when the phone rang. Not often does one receive good news around that time and no wonder why Lawson assumed the same.

However, as it turned out, it was none other than Marko himself with a rather exciting offer in hand for the Kiwi.

“I was in bed and was at my girlfriend’s, I didn’t know who was on the other end of the line. I thought to myself: ‘Don’t bother, it’s okay. Probably nobody important.’ And I remember that she woke up, looked and said: ‘Helmut Marko’,” he told Motorsport Total.

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The Red Bull advisor brings out the good news

Lawson acknowledged that he immediately rang up Marko, who got straight to the question of whether he is interested to compete in Formula 3.

“I perked myself up as quickly as possible and then called back immediately,” he said. “Then he asked me if I would like to drive Formula 3 this year. I said ‘yes’. One morning when I was back in the UK it was four o’clock, which is five in the morning in Central Europe.

“I don’t know what Helmut usually does at this time, but he called me. Sometimes he likes to leave you alone for a month or two and then call you more often,” he concluded.

Of course, Marko making such untimely calls isn’t anything new for the Red Bull drivers, with world champions, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel, allegedly being the primary examples. So, with Lawson being only the third such driver, could this be a sign of what’s to come for the current F2 driver?

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