Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko says Nyck de Vries has been handed "a yellow car" in the wake of the disappointing start to his 2023 season, but insists the Dutchman's seat with AlphaTauri is safe, for now.
De Vries was added to Red Bull's rostrum of F1 drivers on the back of his remarkable F1 debut and top-ten performance with Williams at last year's Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
But so far, the 28-year-old rookie has underperformed relative to AlphaTauri teammate Yuki Tsunoda while his weekends in Melbourne and Baku were marred by crashes.
De Vries' struggles fueled a wave of speculation last week that the Dutchman could be replaced by Red Bull reserve Daniel Ricciardo if he doesn't quickly get his act together.
©AlphaTauri
While both Marko and AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost agreed that de Vries needs to step up his performance, and have told the latter as much, the Red Bull chief insists there will be no changes in the short term.
"Nothing will happen in the coming races," said Marko in an interview with F1 Insider.
"We talked to de Vries and he agrees with us: he needs to improve. The gap to teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who is doing great, is too big.
"To speak in football player language, Nyck got the yellow card, but not the red one yet. If he improves, there will be no problem."
Marko also denied that Ricciardo would be Red Bull's first pick to takeover de Vries' seat should the latter's results fail to improve.
"In the worst-case scenario, we can fall back on our pool of young talent," said Marko. "We are talking about Liam Lawson and Ayumu Iwasa, not Ricciardo.
Lawson who is competing thus season in the Japanese SuperFormula series is Red Bull Racing's official reserve driver, with Ricciardo acting as a backup on race weekends when the Kiwi is unavailable.
As for Iwasa, the 21-year-old Japanese charger competes for DAMS in the FIA Formula 2 Championship and has won twice already this season, in Jeddah and in Melbourne.
Although a recent member of Red Bull's junior programme Iwasa has never tested an F1 car.
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