Whist there has been no confirmation from the Red Bull Formula One team that Liams Lawson is to be dropped, the cat appears well and truly out of the bag. TJ13 broke the story in the UK following Dr. Marko briefing a close contact of the team’s plans before the next race in Japan.
The response to the news of the New Zealand drivers’ demotion to the Racing Bulls has been varied, but with most questioning the sanity of the decision making going on in Milton Keynes.
Red Bull are renown for ditching drivers mid-season, but after just two races in 2025 even by their standards this is a remarkable move. The team failed to prepare lawson properly as did Mercedes with Kimi Antonelli who racked up a reported 10,000km of testing last year in a previous Mercedes F1 car.
Red Bull yet to comment
Lawson by comparison was given six races in the completely different VCARB car and bizarrely it was Yuki Tsunoda who was offered the post season test in the RB20 rather than Lawson. Yuki snow completely unprepared for mission ‘partner Max’ having no pre-season experience of the RB21 and no time to organise a previous car test.
There is no data in the world that Red Bull have acquired over just two races to suggest that now Tsunoda is a better choice than he was at the end of last year. This means the move is one of utter panic in Milton Keynes, with Dr. Helmut Marko once again apparently pulling the strings.
The Red Bull line when finalised will likely go along the lines of, “we think there’s a problem with the RB21. By putting Yuki in the car we will understand whether it was Lawson or the car which was problematic.” Of course this should drive the obvious question from the media present in Suzuka whether should the Japanese driver fair no better than Lawson, they will bring back the New Zealand and driver.
To head this off at the pass Red Bull could elect to present the driver swap as potentially temporary, although the $10m plus they’ve allegedly received from Yuki’s sponsor Honda would presumably then be on the line.
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Having failed to prepare Lawson properly enough, the team had a moral responsibility to support their driver for longer than just nine days. Karun Chabndhok said in China that Liam deserved at least until F1 returns to its European base following round five at the Miami GP.
Channel 4’s lead commentator Ben Anderson calls out in The Race, “Red Bull’s descent into madness and incoherence continues.” Given the criticism of the car from Max Verstappen starting early last season, he questions why the team haven’t completed a proper technical overhaul rather than appear to blame their driver. “Lawson being made a scapegoat – after just two races! Ridiculous,” Anderson concludes.
Red Bull have been accused of destroying their young drivers in the past, with Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly suffering mid-season demotions to the sister team. Alex Albon is often included in the list after his year and a bit with the Milton Keynes based outfit, though while he was forced to sit out of F1 for the 2021 season, he is now leading the charge for the Williams team.
F1 writer Scott Mitchel-Malm writes: “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.”
Farce of Max trying out a Racing Bull
Though Liam should take heart from the examples of his former team mates who faced the axe, with Pierre Gasly now a Grand prix winner and leader of the Alpine team and Albon being rated as a top ten F1 driver. This may help rebuild his confidence along with the fact that the Racing Bulls was described last time out in China as a better car than the RB21 by non other than Verstappen himself.
If this is the case maybe Max should offer to pilot the sister team car to improve his own fortunes, or in another moment of lunacy maybe Red Bull could ask him to try out the Racing Bulls car by way of a comparison.
F1 writer Sam Smith questions who are making the crazy decisions within Red Bull and points the finger at the man who runs the team’s junior driver programme. “That appears to a great extent to be Helmut Marko, who in my opinion has long since been neither a rational talent spotter or a credible man manager.”
By way of contrast to last year when Red Bull appeared to dither and procrastinate over what to do with. Sergio Perez, the team will argue it is now taking a swift intervention for both Lawson and the team’s sake. F1 reporter Jack Cousins sums up the scenario even if Red Bull have made the right call. “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.”
F1 history of headline driver sackings
Headline sacking of drivers is none thing new in F1, with Ferrari famed for their ruthless driver decisions whilst Enzo was alive. He signed Carlos Reutemann on the spot to replace Niki Lauda, after the team’s anger at the Austrian drivers’ refusal to race at a rain soaked Japanese GP.
Rene Arnoux was also sacked by Ferrari after just the second race of the 1983 season. This was a seven times Grand Prix winner and challenger for the drivers title just two year’s previously while driving for the Scuderia.
The there was Robert Moreno who was dumped in a moment by Benetton with them having watched Michael Schumacher’s debut with the Jordan team. Schumacher immediately became a Benetton full time driver, as legendary team boss Eddie Jordan had pulled the Flavio Briatore’s strings well.
Hyperbole denouncing Red Bull, extreme
The next headline sacking in F1 may well include Briatore again, given his signing of Franco Colpinto in January. Jack Dooha was announced as the Alpine driver for 2024 back in the autumn of last year, but is now under pressure from the promising Argentinian.
So in the grand scheme of things, the hyperbole denouncing Red Bull Racing appears somewhat extreme. Lawson may go well against Hadjar in the Racing Bulls and prove his worth as a top ten driver as former F1 car designer Gary Anderson pens.
Equally Tsunoda with experience of the Red Bull car’s handling characteristics may prove to be a good choice to partner Max and his team radio messages will entertain millions each weekend as he battles for podium finishes, which even the ‘nasty’ RB21 is capable of.
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The Chinese Grand Prix proved to be a watershed moment in this season’s Formula one championship. The McLaren 1-2 on Sunday confirmed the Woking based squad are strong favourites to win the constructors’ title race and Ferrari have once again become shambolic.
A double disqualification for both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc from the Grand Prix demonstrated the weakness in the Scuderia’s risk assessment processes. Leclerc’s car was underweight come the chequered flag due to poor analysis of tyre wear, according to Ferrari and Hamilton’s ride height was too low despite the team raising it after the Sprint.
Liam Lawson confirmed the Red Bull car is a pig to drive, with only Max Verstappen currently able to extract some kind of front running performance from the RB21. Yet behind the drama, the FIA had introduced a radical overhaul of its flexi bodywork tests, slashing the tolerance for movement the rear wing by 75% before handing back 0.25mm additional allowance just for the weekend in Shanghai…. READ MORE
The Judge, a nom de plume of an experienced F1 journalist and site founder with long-standing sources across the paddock. With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
