COLUMBIA, Mo. – Just two races into the 2025 season, the first major driver move has taken place to shake up the Formula One landscape. Red Bull has decided to swap the rookie Liam Lawson with the experienced Yuki Tsunoda, sending the New Zealander back down to the junior team, Racing Bulls, after his disastrous first two race weekends behind the wheel.
Grim History
Swapping drivers midseason is nothing new for the team based in Milton Keynes. Having created a culture described as “cutthroat” by fans and pundits of motorsport, Red Bull has become synonymous with letting go of drivers when its aspired results haven’t been achieved. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen’s introduction to the team was seemingly the catalyst for this, having replaced Daniil Kvyat after the Russian driver’s poor start to the 2016 season.
After that, consistency became something of a rarity for Red Bull from 2017-20. Having already been a part of the team prior to Verstappen’s arrival, Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo achieved some of his greatest successes on the grid in the ‘17 and ’18 seasons. When Ricciardo opted out of a contract extension, the English constructor brought up Frenchman Pierre Gasly for 2019. However, the Frenchman was replaced after just 12 races for another driver from its junior team, Alex Albon. Albon’s exit soon followed a season-and-a-half later, as Red Bull brought in Mexican star Sergio Pérez from outside the team to sway attention away from its driver development disasters. After four years of mixed results from the veteran, Red Bull said goodbye to Pérez, resting its second seat hopes with Lawson prior to 2025. In just two races though, yet another change has been made.
With this latest swap, Verstappen will now have been paired with six drivers in his tenure with Red Bull, a bad look for a team that is attempting to reclaim the Constructors Championship after its 3rd place finish last season.
The Facts
For all the talk about Red Bull’s crude path to success in Formula One, with only a glance at Lawson’s results, one could understand the team’s dilemma. Through two Grand Prix weekends, the young driver struggled to put together promising results in any featured format.
With three qualifying sessions for reference, Lawson finished his short Red Bull tenure with an average starting position of 19.33 on race day. When compared with Verstappen’s average of 3.00, the major discrepancy between teammates is evident.
Lawson’s race day performances hardly proved to be much better, as he finished out of the points in all three opportunities presented. His best result, a P12 finish in the Feature Race of China, was in large part thanks to post-race disqualifications against the two Ferrari cars and the Alpine of Gasly. Even then, Lawson still finished 64.491 seconds back from his teammate, well off the pace of title-winning expectation.
Unfavorable Machinery
Is Lawson wholly to blame though for his struggles in the Red Bull? Perhaps not, as current and previous team members have made evident that the car is built to favor the driving style of his world champion counterpart.
“But the car is set up in a unique way that is built around the lead driver, and that’s Max,” former Red Bull driver Alex Albon said. “He has a very distinct style of driving, and he likes the car set up a certain way that’s hard for a lot of drivers to sync up with. Of course, you can tinker and tweak your own car, but just the Red Bull in general is suited to Max’s style.”
“Max is quite specific in what he wants from a car to make it fast,” team principal Christian Horner said. “That is generally a very positive front end on the car. A very sharp turn-in, and of course, the consequence of that is it will unsettle the rear of the car.”
“Already through the very last stages of ’23, the car was starting to become more difficult to drive,” former chief technology officer Adrien Newey said. “Of course that suited Max – He could handle that, if you like. Checo (Sergio Pérez) couldn’t.”
Enter Tsunoda
With Lawson’s departure back to the junior team, Red Bull played the only real card it had left in its arsenal. Bringing Yuki Tsunoda into the fold finally ended the longstanding rumor that the constructor had been holding back the Japanese driver in the development program. Additionally, with 89 races behind the wheel of an F1 car, Tsunoda’s experience trumped all of the other drivers available within the team’s reserve pool.
Another point in Tsunoda’s favor was Red Bull’s relationship with its engine-developer, Honda. The Japanese company had always favored its countryman for the second Red Bull seat, and with the end of the two groups’ relationship looming, in all likelihood, a peaceful conclusion now stands to come with Tsunoda’s introduction.
Ultimately, the pressure lies on Tsunoda to help develop the RB21 and drive it well enough to score alongside Verstappen. Red Bull has only scored 36 points through two race weekends and sits uncomfortably in third place in the constructor standings. If the seasoned driver manages to push the car into the points consistently, Red Bull’s hopes of contending for the Constructors Championship could be reaffirmed.
Final Thoughts
Liam Lawson’s demotion after just two races with the senior Red Bull team is a reminder of the brutality that drivers endure in motorsport. No seat is ever permanent, and he becomes the latest in a long line of drivers to suffer the brutal axe at the hands of Red Bull.
On the positive side, Lawson isn’t removed from the F1 paddock entirely. The junior team, Racing Bulls, is where the New Zealander initially got his start on the grid, and with the rest of the season to drive the stable VCARB-02, expectation should be that Lawson’s journey isn’t finished yet.
On the flipside, Yuki Tsunoda finally gets the opportunity many had clamored for him to receive. With his future uncertain after the end of this season, the opportunity to drive for one of the premier teams on the grid is his chance to secure a seat for the long term.