Liam Lawson looks set to be relegated to its ‘b’ team in favour of Yuki Tsunoda for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Our team give their take on a story that’s understandably sparking a particularly passionate reaction about what it says about Red Bull’s driver strategy and what it means for Lawson and Tsunoda.
‘Madness and incoherence’
Ben Anderson
Red Bull’s descent into madness and incoherence continues.
No doubt an argument will be made in the coming days that it’s better to move now than persevere with underperformance for too long, and that it’s a strength that Red Bull is in the ‘unique position’ of being able to swap drivers around like this.
But what about the continued underperformance of the car? Who is carrying the can for that?
The drivers, Max Verstappen included, keep saying there are long standing problems there that haven’t been addressed. But instead of a technical overhaul we get distractions like this – Lawson being made a scapegoat – after just two races! Ridiculous.
And if the drivers who aren’t Max really are all so rubbish, why has Red Bull not moved heaven and earth to sign better ones?
It increasingly feels like Red Bull is a sinking ship with too many leaks to fix. Eventually, it’s going to capsize, and if that team cannot quickly find solutions I would expect Verstappen will hop off the overturned hull and be off to Mercedes (or whichever is the best port in a storm for him) the first chance he gets.
Imagine how bad Red Bull would look without Verstappen there. This is a team in crisis that just doesn’t look like it knows what it’s doing anymore.
Is Tsunoda a dead man walking?
Glenn Freeman
I’m worried for Tsunoda. Red Bull overlooked him when the evidence in his favour was compelling last year, which hardly screams ‘vote of confidence’ now he’s getting the seat. The promotion seems to be more related to Lawson’s performances than a sudden realisation that Tsunoda should have had that seat all along. So is he walking in there already up against it?
It’s hard enough to be the second Red Bull driver, let alone if all the signs are that the team (or at least its upper management) don’t necessarily have faith in you. And if Lawson only got two races before being jettisoned, how confident can Tsunoda be that he’ll be given time to sort it out if he gets off to a wobbly start?
Hopefully that isn’t how this plays out. Tsunoda should have got this drive over the winter, and should have had the entire off-season to prepare himself for a hard-earned opportunity.
Let’s hope he’s up to the task, and then we can all wonder why on earth Red Bull didn’t give him the drive in the first place.
‘Maximum damage to both drivers’
Scott Mitchell-Malm
Putting Tsunoda in the car was the right decision four months ago.
Once Red Bull picked Lawson it should have been prepared to back him and I can’t decide whether it’s cowardly, incompetent or something else to change that so quickly.
Handling it this way, regardless of how unexpected Lawson’s specific struggles might be, has the potential to cause maximum damage to both drivers.
Lawson’s confidence, and his reputation, could be irreversibly damaged by this, at least in an F1 context. He’ll look to Pierre Gasly’s F1 revival as evidence that a rapidly spurned Red Bull driver can still thrive on the grid but at least Gasly got half a season, then a lengthy stay at the second team to rebuild himself. Who knows what Lawson will get.
As for Tsunoda…I hope this works. If he can be at his best in a Red Bull it could be a fascinating development. But again, Red Bull doing it this way means Tsunoda goes in with a hand tied behind his back. He has the pressure of his home race immediately, the expectation of being an instant success against Lawson’s failure, and he’s doing this without a pre-season. That’s the really strange thing.
I always thought that Red Bull would have the option of swapping Lawson and Tsunoda mid-season if it wasn’t quite working. At least then it would have given Lawson a fair crack.
But such an early swap will only mean Tsunoda’s missed a crucial chance at getting to know the team and the car for nothing.
Second driver is irrelevant in this car
Jack Benyon
Honestly, at this point, does it even matter who Red Bull puts in this car alongside Max Verstappen?
It’s made enough competent drivers look weak, and that’s mainly due to the excessive demands of driving this car which is often unfairly labelled as ‘the way Max likes it’ but even he has repeatedly lambasted it and asked for improvements the team hasn’t been quick enough to react to.
Last year I thought it was absolutely bizarre and a detriment to Red Bull not to put Carlos Sainz in the car. Now I wonder if a seat at Williams – once labelled a big step down for him – was a massive let off for Sainz!
Would Sainz have made any difference to Lawson? Not because he isn’t good enough, but because past achievement in F1 seems to be irrelevant when getting in Red Bull’s roulette wheel of a car.
The fact I’ve even written that paragraph feels maddening and shows the extent of the issue, trying to use the data we have on current drivers and apply it to a lottery of ‘could they actually deal with this car’.
I feel sorry for Tsunoda that he’s been thrown in like this with such pressure attached, and for Verstappen as he’s painted as the big bad wolf when ultimately he’s just done his best and it’s the team that designs, develops and builds the car – with Verstappen’s input – but it should be in charge.
Golden opportunity for Tsunoda
Josh Suttill
Taking an early look at how the 2026 F1 grid could form Yuki Tsunoda appeared to be the driver most likely to lose his seat.
With Honda switching its backing from Red Bull to Aston Martin, Red Bull wanting to get its current Formula 2 protege Arvid Lindblad into F1 as soon as possible, and Tsunoda facing the prospect of an unprecedented sixth season (followin in the junior team, the odds of Tsunoda remaining at Racing Bulls for 2026 looked slim.
And his options outside of that looked scant with new Honda partner Aston Martin full until 2027. He might have been a genuine option for Haas at one point but no realistic team has room bar Cadillac and it will have a very long list of drivers interested.
Therefore it’s highly likely Tsunoda could have dropped off the grid altogether at the end of this year, an injustice given he’s been one of F1’s top midfield operators for the last two years.
Ironically of course he still might lose his seat if this Red Bull opportunity goes as well as it did for Lawson. But as Edd Straw always says, incumbency is a valuable weapon, one Tsunoda can use to change the course of his F1 career.
‘Destroying him mentally’
Gary Anderson
I’ve said before that I would have had strong words with Lawson, help him get his mental approach sorted which is such a big part of the confidence you need to drive these cars.
I’d give him the opportunity to go in what ever way he needs to improve his performance, if that is identical to Verstappen or with his own requirements then so be it, and then give him the next three races to try and find his performance again.
I’m not saying he is a Max Verstappen beater and in the same car very few are, however I believe he is a top 10 qualifier and a reasonable points scorer at worst. It’s the team and the car that is destroying him mentally at the moment.
Lay the law down to him and give him a chance, that’s the minimum Red Bull need to do, however moving him back to Racing Bulls team may just be more egg on the Red Bull managements face, just imaging if he qualifies in front of Max in Suzuka.
Tsunoda knows the situation, if he is offered the drive he can’t really refuse it, it has nothing to do with him personally.
So he just needs to get his head down and get the best result possible, for his sake and his career I hope he does well but from what have seen from Verstappen’s team-mates over the last few years the odds are not in his favour.
Red Bull’s make a mistake either way
Jon Noble
Whichever way you look at it, and whatever Yuki Tsunoda manages to do in the RB21 if things do indeed head the way, the reality is that Red Bull is going to have to admit that it has made a mistake somewhere along the way.
If Tsunoda is impressive from the off and puts in even a remotely semi decent performance, then Red Bull surely made an error in overlooking him last winter when it had the chance to go for him and instead chose Lawson.
For it is hard to imagine there is a huge data set difference between what Tsunoda has shown the squad in the first two races, and what it had available to it last winter. So what went wrong in its estimation of the man it picked?
But if Tsunoda faces the same old struggles as Lawson; finds it hard to achieve a comfortable balance and is off the pace – and just as bad as the man he is replacing – then surely Red Bull will have to put its hand up and say the problem is not the drivers it is the car (or more specifically the characteristics that only Max Verstappen seems able to deal with).
And if the conclusion is that the car is the real issue, then Red Bull will have been wrong to make Lawson the scapegoat so quickly – and without any chance to redeem himself without some proper time back at base with his engineers.
All eyes on Tsunoda now…
Who is behind ‘ludicrous policies’?
Sam Smith
It’s getting to the point now where if you were a driver manager you’d look at possibly avoiding Red Bull and its young driver programme.
Yes, Lawson has pretty much stunk the house out in his first two grands prix. But this has been on tracks he doesn’t know and in a tricky Red Bull design.
That doesn’t warrant anything other than what should be in-built in an F1 team – support, advice and a degree of patience. He’s seemingly getting very little of that just when he needs it most.
He’s doesn’t appear to be getting any of that and it speaks louder than questions on Lawson’s ability, which we know definitely exist. To wantonly take these two poor performances and weaponise them is irresponsible and amateur in the extreme.
Has Verstappen’s overall success propagated this irrationality on Red Bull’s part? Even if it has, it doesn’t mean you use it as an unbreakable mould because Verstappen is clearly a once in a generation talent.
I think what is more pertinent is actually who is fuelling these ludicrous policies? That appears to a great extent to be Helmut Marko, who in my opinion has long since been a rational talent spotter or a credible man manager.
No surprise another junior is discarded
Charley Williams
If there’s one thing Red Bull does well, it’s shattering the confidence of a young driver – and this is a problem of Red Bull’s own making.
The team has hailed Lawson’s potential for growth and his ability to deal with pressure so instead of adding him to its revolving door of drivers, why not offer him the support, time and patience that is sometimes needed for a driver to flourish? At the very least, give him the upcoming triple header which includes the first circuit on the calendar he’s raced at before.
While it’s true that Lawson has endured a far from ideal start to his career, the willingness to drop a driver after only two races further highlights the cut-throat, compassionless culture that Red Bull seems to thrive on.
It’s now irrelevant to consider whether it was the correct decision to promote Lawson in the first place, I think it’s pretty clear that no driver will ever be enough in the second seat of a team who wants everything and nothing all at the same time.
‘Verging on deplorable’
Jack Cozens
Much as it’s a stark difference from last year’s crippling spell of indecision, Red Bull gets no credit from me for realising its error quicker than usual.
Yes, this is elite sport. Athletes have to be exposed to, and be capable of dealing with, the cut-throat nature of competition and all that comes with it – whether that’s a team decision or being scrutinised by the media, as Lawson rightly has been in the wake of his start to life at the senior team.
But that doesn’t mean Red Bull is being anything other than compassionless, verging on deplorable, in the way it’s treating Lawson, even if it’s probably ended up with the right decision.
There are ways to go about such delicate matters and Red Bull’s sudden snap back to reality from the dreamland it’s been in since it elected to promote Lawson means it’s ended up in a situation bereft of any dignity for anyone involved.
As for Tsunoda, I think he’s already passed one of the tests Red Bull has been so concerned about by rising above another snub at the end of last year and having the patience to just kick on in the way he so impressively has at the start of 2025
Maybe that was part of the plan all along; at this stage, anything’s plausible.
And if this does come off, and some of that so-dreaded impatience rears its head over the Red Bull team radio – well, it hasn’t exactly stood the driver on the other side of the garage in bad stead, has it?
