Red Bull reportedly decided to axe Liam Lawson after just two races, following a disappointing start to the 2025 season. He was chosen over Yuki Tsunoda to replace Sergio Perez, but two Q1 eliminations, in addition to P15 and P12 finishes in Australia and China, have prompted the team to take another direction.
Dutch outlet De Limburger claims that following an emergency meeting in Dubai involving the likes of team principal Christian Horner and senior advisor Helmut Marko, Red Bull decided to drop Lawson in favour of another rival already on the grid.
While Canal+ claims that replacement is Yuki Tsunoda, who has outperformed Lawson after being snubbed in favour of the Kiwi just a few months ago.
Lawson qualified in 18th at the Australian Grand Prix and then crashed out, before he was slowest in both sprint and Grand Prix qualifying sessions in China, then finishing 16th.
The 23-year-old had not raced in either Australia’s circuit nor China’s previously and problems with the RB21 have been noted by team and Verstappen, but Lawson’s zero points compared to the 36 of his team-mate have been deemed unacceptable.
The call is said to have the backing of Honda, who are staunch supporters of Tsunoda, with Red Bull approaching the power unit provider over how much they would be willing to pay for the Japanese driver to race alongside Verstappen.
Horner added fuel to the fire when asked about potentially replacing Lawson with Tsunoda, not denying the possibility and replying: “There’s always going to be speculation in the paddock. As I say, we’ve only just finished the race here. We’ll take away the info and have a good look at it.
“I think Liam’s had a tough couple of races, a tough weekend here. We elected to take him off the grid out of parc ferme to do a significant set-up change and so we’ve managed to get 56 laps of reasonable data from that. Obviously, we’ll take that away, we’ll have a good look at it, and, as a group, we’ll do our best to support him.”
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