The news Red Bull has fired Liam Lawson after just two starts for the team has been rumoured for days.
But that doesn’t make it any less of a jaw-dropping decision, particularly given how patient Red Bull was with his predecessor Sergio Perez.Red Bull persisted so long with Perez it arguably cost them a constructors’ championship last year. When, three months ago, Red Bull finally abandoned hope he would turn another poor season around, Horner gave this explanation for why they chose Lawson, who had started just 11 grands prix, as his replacement.
“We felt that Liam’s trajectory, together with his mental strength and resilience, were the right assets to partner Max,” he said. “Because arguably that seat is the toughest in Formula 1, going up against Max Verstappen, who is at the peak of his career.”
The gulf between Lawson and Verstappen in the RB21 was undeniably wide. The newcomer was over a second slower than Verstappen in qualifying at Melbourne, and only whittled that down to three-quarters of a second in Shanghai last weekend. The gap between Lawson and Verstappen over a single lap was always greater than between any other pair of team mates.
The team has announced Yuki Tsunoda as Lawson’s replacement. There will be anxious faces on the Red Bull pit wall if he fails to get any closer than that at Suzuka next week.
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After qualifying in Australia, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown – never one to pass up an opportunity to make Horner squirm – wondered aloud why Red Bull had promoted Lawson instead of Tsunoda, who parked his car fifth on the grid. “Yuki did a great job,” Brown enthused while speaking to Sky, adding he was “probably the guy who should be in the Red Bull if you look at how he’s performed, but they seem to make some strange driver choices from time to time.”
“It’s very early to say how he’s going to do,” he said. “I think, for everyone out there, the conditions and the general format of qualifying now make things very tight.
“Firstly, let’s start with the fact that qualifying is closer than ever, which is great for everyone. But it also means that if you’re just a little bit off, you’re likely going to be out in Q1.
“Then in the race, there’s not much to say. Everyone was struggling out there. I think, especially for the rookies and the ones with a little bit less experience, they were on the back foot for most of Sunday. So I think we need to give him a bit of time to get up to speed.”
To begin with, Horner appeared to agree with Albon’s assessment. “You can’t judge Liam on what we’ve seen so far,” he said after the race. “It’d be very unfair to do that.
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“He’s had a really difficult run so far. Let’s see about the race tomorrow, and then of course, as we get to tracks that he starts to know, I think he’ll start to come alive.”
Tsunoda may be a year older than Lawson but they came up through the junior categories together. Lawson insisted he had the upper hand but realistically there was often little to separate them.
But Red Bull put Tsunoda on the fast track to F1 after he out-scored Lawson in the 2019 Formula 3 championship. They promoted him to Formula 2 the next year and Formula 1 the year after that.
Lawson’s progress was slower. He had another year in F3, then two in F2. By the end of 2022, Red Bull had a vacancy to fill at their second F1 team (then called AlphaTauri), and Lawson seemed an obvious choice for an promotion into F1.
But instead they sent him off to Japan’s Super Formula series. If, at this stage, Red Bull were seriously contemplating the possibility their junior driver might join their top team two years down the line, why didn’t they place him at other F1 squad in 2023?
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Instead, Red Bull went to some lengths to find an alternative to Lawson. They flirted with Colton Herta, despite his insufficient superlicence points tally which made him ineligible. Then they went outside their young driver programme to hire Nyck de Vries.
Red Bull’s decision to axe Lawson is therefore the third peculiar call it has made regarding his career development: Why not give him an F1 drive in 2023 when the chance was there? Why promote him to Red Bull at the end of last year when Tsunoda had started eight times as many races and looked every bit as quick? And why give up on him after just two appearances, both at circuits he had no prior experience of?
Few of Red Bull’s decisions during Lawson’s career to date made much sense. If a team is cutting a driver loose after two rounds the fault clearly rests less with the driver and more on those who hired him for misjudging his preparedness so badly. The only team on the grid which enjoys the luxury of a second junior F1 squad to develop young talent has no excuse for getting this so wrong.
No doubt Horner will not enjoy being reminded his decision to drop Lawson for Tsunoda indicate Brown was right. But it’s not only Red Bull’s team principal who has a say in these calls.
Helmut Marko, the ex-F1 racer who oversees Red Bull’s young driver programme, appears to relish slating the efforts of drivers a quarter of his age. Asked before the season began to rate the rookie class of 2025 he dismissed Alpine’s Jack Doohan as a C-grade talent who would be replaced before the end of the year.
He said nothing about Lawson’s potential to complete as little as one-twelfth of the season, though. It’s surely time for a trenchant, clickbait-friendly assessment of Marko’s role in Red Bull’s failure to find an adequate team mate for its star driver.
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Comment
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David
27th March 2025, 9:28
Probably the pragmatic reason is that Lawson was not comfortable in the car and Red Bull didn’t want to do the work to help him get comfortable, so they just switched the drivers around.
I hope for Yuki’s sake that he can drive a car that is set up for Max otherwise he will have just as rough a time. For an average driver, the Red Bull is barely a midfield car, let alone a front runner.
Not a good outcome for anyone really. In my opinion they should have given Lawson until the summer.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 9:33
I couldn’t agree more.
Mr B
27th March 2025, 11:57
I believe the only time Tsunoda has driven the Red Bull was an end of season test last year. I remember him proclaiming that it suited his driving style, obviously in an attempt to secure the open Red Bull seat for this year. I guess we’ll find out in Japan. I for one hopes he goes well.
El Pollo Loco
28th March 2025, 2:03
That and the fact that whole learning a new track struggle is absolute nonsense as shown by almost every bit of historical data, F1 drivers themselves and my own personal experience as a non-professional racing driver. This just feels like Keith taking what are obviously PR/damage control comments too literally.
None of this changes the fact that RBR’s management of the #2 seat has been absolutely abysmal and this was predictable and in fact I’d say the vast majority of fans and media predicted Lawson would not work out. Ironically, their refusal to sign either of the two star drivers they could have for the sake of showing Max he is their only priority is unlikely to even them help keep Max past the end of his current contract.
Martin (@f1hornet)
27th March 2025, 9:35
How is Helmut Marko’s performance reviewed? If you have to demote a driver after two races, then you have to ask questions of the person who made the decision to put the driver in the seat in the first place. Maybe Helmut Marko’s job is just to ensure that the Red Bull senior team has one world class driver, which is fine, but surely the whole point of the young driver system to that you have the next cab off the rank ready to go?
If, despite having a whole junior team in which to blood drivers (unlike any other F1 team), Red Bull still can’t find a competent second driver, then surely Marko should be sacked? It cost them the WCC last season.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
27th March 2025, 9:47
He can point to 8 WDC’s in 20 years. If he takes the brickbats he surely has to take the plaudits? He doesn’t ingratiate himself very well and he’s probably not interested in doing so but Mercedes aside, as the planets aligned for them, who else has got close in finding quality drivers? Not only that they have a program that their ‘failures’ have had careers elsewhere in F1. Again who else has done that?
S Arkazam
27th March 2025, 9:59
He can throw in as well that he contracted Max when he was about to sign with Mercedes.
And indeed having Gasly, Albon, and Sainz doing fairly well in the sport could also be mentioned by him.
BasCB (@bascb)
27th March 2025, 10:37
Hm, I don’t really think any team owner would love having been the “driving school” that supplied their rivals with solid drivers Arkazam.
Is Marko to blame? Surely at least in part because his “throw them in at the deep end and see if they become a champ” approach clearly doesn’t work with most drivers. Ever since they fast tracked Max after snatching him away from Mercedes their program has been in shambles. But the management at Red Bull (i.e. Horner) should have a good look at themselves too, since the likes of Marshall, Newey and many others going away will hardly have helped make that car drivable and fast. Other teams were able to support a rookie and see them grow.
I do hope that Lawson will be able to regroup, gain new confidence in himself and ultimately become the best driver that he can become at the “baby team”, the car and the environment there are certainly more conductive for it. Yuki – well, good luck, I guess. He will have to show some highlights to capture the attention of other teams for the future before RB sacks him as well.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
27th March 2025, 11:26
Slightly naïve view of how it works. You think hotshoes in karting are all picked up at 5 yrs old?. Its a market place and if i was 16 i’d jump at the chance to race with RBR. They give you a chance, then its up to you. F1 is not a finishing school as is often said. But hay your agenda is clear. No problem
BasCB (@bascb)
27th March 2025, 12:04
Right – so why then does RB tend to pull in young drivers who are NOT the finished article and put them into their “baby team” in F1?
I do hope you weren’t talking about my “agenda”, since I really am not on any agenda, apart from enjoying F1 and being happy to see drivers grow in their roles and show us what they can achieve in the greatest cars and teams. Red Bull has been doing a lot right (as goes for just about any team in F1 to a lesser or greater extent), but they have also been doing a lot very wrong over the years.
We can criticize one thing while also seeing the others
elchinero (@elchinero)
27th March 2025, 13:22
Their “USE BY” date was over-run:
Liam
Mick
The Russian thug
Danny Ric
Sergio
Logan
Doohan?
and on and on … like staying in a failed marriage “for the kids”
PacificPR (@streydt)
27th March 2025, 10:54
I think is about time they put Marko himself in that 2nd Red Bull..
Avro Anson (@avroanson)
27th March 2025, 11:43
In his one year in F2, Marko came 20th. In his ten races in F1 (cut short by injury) he failed to score a point. He’s hardly the person to be dictating the future of young drivers.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
29th March 2025, 1:35
Ahah, would be fun, age and other technicalities aside, if they were like “ok, nothing works, might as well give marko a shot”!
Colin
27th March 2025, 12:47
Half of the drivers in the current field are there because of Marko…
jhg103 (@joshgeake)
27th March 2025, 13:31
Marko’s job goes beyond the driver academy – he’s essentially the Thai owner’s mole.
builtInYorkshire (@olpeculier)
27th March 2025, 9:38
He starts with Red Bull on two circuits he’s never driven on, and is dropped before a race on a track he’s very familiar with and would give him the perfect setting to prove that he’s suitable for the seat.
Ooooh Kaaaay.
Red Bull sales in Kiwi land are going to tank, I was there for three weeks last year and he’s very highly regarded by the locals who follow motorsport.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
27th March 2025, 9:47
Yeh who is Piastri anyway?
MurasamaRA300 (@murasamara300)
27th March 2025, 9:59
In Australia the team kept him out on slicks in the rain.
S Arkazam
27th March 2025, 10:00
I hear to need some additional cases in Japan ;)
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 9:38
In hindsight, Red Bull indeed should’ve given Lawson the entire 2023 & 2024 seasons to gain experience instead of overlooking him for De Vries & Ricciardo, respectively.
For that matter, they should’ve also given Gasly the entire 2017 season since winning the GP2 championship & Kvyat’s struggles post-demotion combined were more than enough justifiable reasons for having him drive in Toro Rosso immediately from the 2017 season opener onwards.
They clearly never learn anything about the importance of using opportunities for experience-gaining for drivers they might consider for a main team promotion eventually.
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
27th March 2025, 12:10
@jerejj I’ve always suspected it’s pure belligerence from Marko. He’s clearly not the type to admit fault or apologise, so every decision he makes is just bulldozed through until his next bright prospect is ready to go (or the entire situation is untennable and the blame can go somewhere else, like the car or the driver in question).
He was allowed to run the driver program as he desired, with a blank cheque and limited to zero oversight from DM… Vettel and Verstappen worked out and, like the problems with the teams cars throughout the years, it papered over the cracks and masked the unstable foundations…
Iosif (@afonic)
27th March 2025, 9:59
If they have the constructors as a target they need a quality second driver and so far I don’t think they seriously tried to get one. They don’t want anyone that can throw Max off balance. Tsunoda will probably struggle as well.
Sainz was available. Ocon was as well. Probably Max vetoed both.
tielemst
27th March 2025, 10:11
That’s quite the accusation. Is there anything to back it up, or is it just a conclusion you’ve reached yourself based on the image you have created of the person? Which might be based solely on the things seen and heard in the media?
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 11:14
@afonic Yes, Sainz & Ocon were available & so was Bottas, for that matter.
MacLeod (@macleod)
27th March 2025, 13:40
I have never heard that Max vetoed any driver maybe you should check your sources on that…….
Sainz was aviable but was he really? He signed with Williams very soon so we never will know. Problem is Red Bull was more interested in promoting THEIR academy drivers that is an more of a reason they didn’t select Sainz.
SteveP
27th March 2025, 19:21
I think you might need to go back and review the timeine.
Most of the seats on the grid were filled by the time Sainz signed with Williams. Williams made him an offer right at the beginning of the season (according to Vowles) but he didn’t talk seriously to them until late in the season.
Silent but Deadly
27th March 2025, 10:07
Another triumph for RBR!!!
Expertly milking the publicity, for the benefit of the ‘drink’, while trashing the ‘sport’ as always. Always leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
A useful shortcut is to take whatever Horner says and reverse the meaning.
SteveP
27th March 2025, 19:24
I will take your word, I don’t like fizzy drinks at all.
An opinion I’ve expressed for quite some while. Hans Christian Horner, teller of tall tales, and organiser of very expensive lunches
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
27th March 2025, 10:36
In some ways I imagine Lawson is relieved that the pressure to star in what is a car the clearly is a handful is off.
It’s up to him now – make a point in the sister team or fade into the distance. He’s tough, he’ll survive.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
27th March 2025, 11:30
Agree, he looked so unhappy and if you are not driving freely you will be slow. I dont know if he is good enough but at least we find out in an environment and in a car that is more towards the norm
Patrick (@paeschli)
27th March 2025, 12:56
In the short time he’s been in F1, I’ve come to love him for his no-nonsense down to earth interviews. He speaks what is on his mind unfiltered. I’m hoping for a strong remainder for the rest of the season before a move to Cadillac.
Dan Rooke (@geekzilla9000)
27th March 2025, 10:39
Separate to any opinion on whether Liam Lawson being switched out of the Red Bull seat and into an RB seat, Keith nails it in the article here:
To what extent does Red Bull maximise having a second team to nurture talent? It’s meant to be feeder team into their main team, but neither Lawson or Perez were from there. It’s the team with the biggest issues with drivers playing musical chairs even though it specifically has a system created to avoid that sort of thing.
I wish Liam and Yuki the best of luck, it never pleases me to see a driver under-perform. I am pleased to read the comments form Horner about looking after Liam in the RB, I just hope it happens and Lawson can salvage some dignity from the situation by demonstrating good racecraft in the RB.
Dan Rooke (@geekzilla9000)
27th March 2025, 10:42
Correction: Liam was in the RB at the end of 2024, but you know what I mean, he was fast tracked into that seat after Ricciardo was booted out, he was technically a full time driver but in reality he’d just joined for a few races at the end.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 11:25
Neither do I find anything pleasant in seeing a driver under-perform, but unfortunately & somehow, this has been a recurring thing in F1 since around the mid-2010s, with at least one driver at a time struggling to perform consistently & match a given team’s average performance level.
Kvyat, Palmer, Vandoorne, Hartley, Gasly, Albon, Vettel, De Vries, Ricciardo, Latifi, Sargeant, Mick, Perez, & Lawson come to my mind who’ve particularly struggled in a given team within this roughly ten-year period.
Simply baffling that drivers who’ve either excelled well/semi-well in lower single-seaters or previously in F1 suddenly start performing badly either immediately or later on separately without anything changing for the better no matter what’s done.
The worst thing is that many drivers never get a chance to compete on the highest level, yet many who receive this opportunity throw it away in 2-3 seasons by consistently under-performing.
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
27th March 2025, 12:14
@geekzilla9000
It works fine if you also had churn at the top too, but when you have top talent you don’t want to move on, you end up with a log jam.
It’s an even bigger problem when you employ & fast-track 18 year olds to the top team who have a long career ahead of them if they turn out to be good – Mercedes might have the same problem with Antonelli.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
27th March 2025, 10:44
It looks a bit like a panic reaction. But maybe they want to know where the Redbull cars really are in comparison to the RB. Now they can get first hand information from Tsunoda and compromising Lawson’s career is just the price to pay.
MikePrice
27th March 2025, 10:49
RB even tried to protect him and boost his confidence but in the end it is not about confidence. That is not where RB is making their mistakes.
There’s no one that stands out and considering this they have yet to take a proper crack at a rookie in hope of striking gold.
There’s only a few drivers on the grid good enough for red bull and only hulkenberg, alonso and maybe leclerc are in a “poachable” situation and good enough to be close to Max. I’m sure Leclerc loves being a ferrari driver but Lewis might become too bothersome, Hulk is stuck on a failling endeavour and Alonso might run out of patience on the Newey endeavour or end up displaced by Max when he runs out of patience with RB.
Watching the onboards Lawson’s driving style is so peculiar, he brakes really late and then turns in all at once, he is even more understeery than perez, in fact he is the most understeery driver I have ever seen and he was like this at Alpha as well.
They are still struggling at picking up talent, quite clear Lawson was never anything special but they feared Tsunoda’s rants so badly they decides to penalize him for it.
Patrick (@paeschli)
27th March 2025, 13:00
Isn’t Max the complete opposite driving style? Brake earlier but accelerate out of the corner faster?
Red Bull should be hunting for drivers with a similar driving style to Verstappen, not the opposite…
MacLeod (@macleod)
27th March 2025, 13:42
@paeschli indeed but last race Max was doing the reverse of that it seems Max wants also some corrections as the car influence his driving style too…
Moshambles (@moshambles)
27th March 2025, 10:57
How does Marko still have a job at this stage? He clearly had no idea what he’s doing anymore, and should be kidded out as soon as possible.
Derek Edwards
27th March 2025, 10:59
Probably unlikely, but i’m secretly hoping that Lawson puts in a good showing in the RB at Suzuka for Q3 and points.
Jere (@jerejj)
27th March 2025, 11:17
Q3 certainly is a realistic possibility based on VCARB’s Australian & Chinese GP pace.
builtInYorkshire (@olpeculier)
27th March 2025, 11:24
I think we all will be rooting for him. I can see him doing well, he’s got track knowledge and the motivation to prove Red Bull wrong.
JeroenJ
27th March 2025, 12:38
Well yes, but I’m also hoping Yuki delivers a solid result.
Shaun sandison
27th March 2025, 11:27
https://www.redbull.com/au-en/max-verstappen-signs-new-deal-red-bull-racing
Team boss Christian Horner added, “As we now look to the long term with Max, he’s in the best place in the sport to build a team around him to deliver our shared ambition.”
It seems to the exclusion of all others. This is why Ricciardo left, and they have had driver problems ever since. Red Bull has been built around him!
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
27th March 2025, 11:32
Crazy building a team around a generational talent who has brought home 4 WDC’s
jhg103 (@joshgeake)
27th March 2025, 13:33
Yes it’s a bit weird that a team with so many titles are apparently making all the wrong decisions.
baasbas
27th March 2025, 12:26
It could be a play by RBR. Lets say they were eying to promote Tsunoda for a while now. But he just kept failing to make the next step, so to speak. So they promoted Lawson just to provoke Tsunoda.
Maybe not the most likely scenario, but still possible :-)
Patrick (@paeschli)
27th March 2025, 13:01
Whatever Tsunoda does now, he can’t look worse than Lawson.
baasbas
27th March 2025, 13:20
@paeschli
Fair. But from a distance it looks like RBR is desperate. They resorted to throwing whatever (whomever?) against the wall to see what sticks. There is no plan anymore. Unless my cynic comment above appears to be true.. and it was all a plot to make Tsunoda step up his game.
It seems all so weird to me. Let’s say the car is bad/weird/specific to drive. Surely they can translate that to the sim. So when Lawson, Tsunoda or anyone tries it in the sim, they already have an idea if the driver can handle said car…?
Mooa42
28th March 2025, 0:00
I hope you are correct. My fear is that he finds the car equally difficult, hopefully his saving grace will be that he knows the track well. I still think he will be beaten by Liam in the Racing Bull at Suzuka, and if Liam was in RedBull I would expect him to be beaten by Yuki at Suzuka.
Ajaxn
28th March 2025, 17:33
Does anyone remember Hamilton in the TURKISH GRAND PRIX 2020 That slick recently tarmacked rain-affected track had everyone flumuxed. You could argue the true test opf a driver is how he deals with the unfamiliar track, rather than how he deals a familiar track in safe conditions.
Maybe this is Red Bull’s reasoning.