In a major shake-up for the world of Formula 1, the Red Bull Racing team has decided to replace Liam Lawson after just two Grand Prix weekends in 2025 when he performed poorly.Yuki Tsunoda of Racing Bulls has been promoted to the seat starting at his home race in Japan on April 6, when he will be teammate to four-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen. Lawson, 23, will return to the junior team he drove for last year.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called it a collective decision by the organization, adding that it could benefit from four-year F1 veteran Tsunoda’s input to develop the Red Bull car this year.
“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,” Horner said in a statement.
“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,” he added. “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.”
Last year, Red Bull cut Sergio Pérez’s contract short and removed him after a string of poor performances. The potential replacements came down to Lawson, of New Zealand, and Tsunoda, who were both at the junior team. While Tsunoda had a modest edge on Lawson in their head-to-head battles, Red Bull opted in December to promote Lawson, instead, seeing more potential in him after he rapidly adapted to the car and occasionally outperformed his teammate.
Now, it is all but admitting it made a mistake.
“We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, an environment and a Team he knows very well,” Horner said.
Tsunoda, 24, will finally get the job he has been chasing for more than four years at the junior team.
The big question is whether he will perform well in the second seat at the Red Bull team, which has been described as “cursed” because of a dismal track record for Verstappen’s teammates.
That’s because the car is widely known to play to Verstappen’s eccentric driving style — with a sharp front end and a loose rear, which makes it hard to control but unlocks great potential for a driver who can handle the extreme sensitivity and narrow performance window. So far, only Verstappen has mastered it.
Pérez, who was hired in late 2020 from outside the Red Bull family, was dismissed last year after he was blamed for costing the team the constructors’ championship, even as Verstappen won the driver’s trophy. Yet he had more success than the Red Bull juniors.
Red Bull’s driver development program, overseen by team adviser Helmut Marko, has delivered one disastrous result after another — its last success story was promoting Verstappen in 2016. (A Red Bull spokesperson declined to comment.)
Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon were enlisted for the Red Bull team in 2019 and 2020, but both failed to perform and were removed. They eventually left the organization and found success at Alpine and Williams, respectively. The common denominator for them and Pérez — who helped lead his earlier Racing Point team to its first and only victory — was the Red Bull car, not the drivers.
In 2023, Red Bull hired Nyck de Vries in its junior team but fired him mid-year and replaced him with Daniel Ricciardo, who made his return to the squad after having left in 2018. Ricciardo was being auditioned for a return to Red Bull alongside Verstappen, but he didn’t live up to its expectations and left F1 last year.
It has sparked questions among F1 analysts about whether the Red Bull car is so uniquely suited to Verstappen’s style that it is undrivable by anybody else, even proven Formula 1 talents.
That leaves Tsunoda with the biggest challenge of his career.
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