Two races, 14 days and 103 laps. That’s the extent of Liam Lawson’s Red Bull career for the foreseeable future as he’s set to be dropped from the Milton Keynes outfit for next week’s Japanese Grand Prix, in favour of home crowd favourite Yuki Tsunoda.
The news that has been circulating the F1 paddock since the end of the Chinese Grand Prix has been confirmed. Red Bull have announced in an official statement that Lawson will be moving back down to Racing Bulls, while Tsunoda gets his long awaited promotion to the senior team.
To say that life for the Kiwi at Red Bull has started out hard would be an understatement. In his first weekend for the team at Melbourne, Lawson’s pace throughout the weekend was almost non-existent with him not even making it out of Q1 on the Saturday and qualifying 18th while the other side of the garage saw their driver qualify on the second row of the grid for the race on Sunday.
To make matters worse, the tricky conditions provided the whole grid with challenges and Lawson was one of the unfortunate ones to get caught out by the weather as he crashed out the grand prix on Lap 47. Not the best start to his stint in dark blue but he was driving a circuit he wasn’t familiar with and the conditions even caught out the likes of the experienced Carlos Sainz and two time world champion Fernando Alonso.
A week later in China, just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Lawson’s pace around the Shanghai International Circuit was nowhere to be found and with only one free practice session on the Friday he was thrown straight into a Sprint Qualifying that saw him qualify last. P20 for a Red Bull, it was unheard of.
Fast forward 24 hours and it happened again, following his subpar performance in the Sprint finishing 14th, it was time for qualifying for the Sunday race and like the day prior his name plummeted down to the bottom of the grid and qualified P20, while his four time world champion teammate qualified fourth. Nothing significant happened on the Sunday either with his final classification of 12th and many suspected that this could be his final time in the Red Bull.
In a statement by Red Bull CEO and Team Principal Christian Horner said: “It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the RB21 at the first two races and, as a result, we have collectively taken the decision to make an early switch.
“We came into the 2025 season with two ambitions, to retain the World Drivers’ Championship and to reclaim the World Constructors’ title and this is a purely sporting decision.”
Red Bull’s loss of the Constructors Championship to McLaren in 2024 seemed to be a driving force behind this decision according to Horner and Lawson’s struggles with the RB21 have put them behind in the race for the constructors and ultimately this opened the door for Tsunoda.
Tsunoda’s performances since his F1 debut in 2021 have steadily improved and as a driver he has matured and really grown into the Red Bull sister team.
He’s confidently taken the lead of that team beating his teammates, including the experienced Daniel Ricciardo and Lawson in 2024. These performances and his experience over the four years are what convinced Horner to promote the Japanese driver and turn this season around for Red Bull despite the RB21 proving an extremely hard car to drive.
“We acknowledge there is a lot of work to be done with the RB21 and Yuki’s experience will prove highly beneficial in helping to develop the current car.
“We welcome him to the team and are looking forward to seeing him behind the wheel of the RB21.”
Horner has also put this decision down to be one of well being for Lawson saying that they have “a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together” and that it makes sense for him to go back to an environment he’s comfortable in with the Racing Bulls outfit.
From the outside perspective, this is extremely harsh even by Red Bull’s standards and Lawson hasn’t made too many friends among the grid and the F1 community, with his brash personality rubbing some the wrong way.
However, it is still unfair on the young driver as he wasn’t even given an adequate chance to prove himself and it’s especially hard on him considering he apparently found out the news through reports on social media and not from the team themselves. A new low for Red Bull.
Even their star driver Max Verstappen has made his displeasure with the team known with an Instagram like on former Dutch racing driver and now broadcaster Giedo van der Garde’s post in support of Lawson and showing his disgust with Red Bull. His post can be read below.
The issue of the second seat at Red Bull is one that has existed since the departure of Ricciardo in 2018 and since then the garage of the second driver to Verstappen has seen five different occupants.
The previous drivers of that seat have all proven that they are capable drivers whether that be in the past with Sergio Perez having a long successful career in the midfield before his move to Red Bull in 2021 or in the future after their departure from Red Bull with both Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon thriving in their new environments at Alpine and Williams respectively. So Lawson can take some solace in the fact that his career isn’t over yet and this pattern just goes to show how hard that Red Bull car is to drive and that it really may be too suited to the unique driving style of the number one car, Verstappen.
That second seat seems to be a curse but here’s hoping Tsunoda can be the anomaly and show success in the RB21 in front of his home crowd.
There’s no doubt that Honda had something to do with his promotion for the Japanese Grand Prix, with the Japanese engine supplier leaving Red Bull in 2026 in favour for Aston Martin so promoting a junior driver they’ve heavily invested in to the senior team would be something they’d want to do before their departure. After all they did give around 10 million euros for him originally and gave an extra 10 mil euros for his move up to Red Bull.
In an Instagram post by the Japanese driver, he shows off his new racing suit with the caption “ready for the challenge ahead”.
If you want to catch the drivers in action in their new seats be sure to watch the third round of the 2025 season, the Japanese Grand Prix next weekend from the 4th-6th of April, with the race starting bright and early at 6am UK time.
