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Well, it's official now. Yuki Tsunoda will replace Liam Lawson at Red Bull in the F1 Japanese GP. The move has already received a lot of backlash from different corners, primarily because he is being replaced after just a couple of races, which is not a sufficient time to make a call on how good or bad a driver is.
At the same time, the first couple of races have been indicative enough of the kind of situation that the Kiwi finds himself in at Red Bull. He has been nowhere close to Max Verstappen in either of the sessions. He has struggled to keep up with his teammate in any aspect. To make things worse, he has been right at the back of the grid while his teammate fights at the sharp end.
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Lawson is not as bad a driver as his current performance, and was very close to Tsunoda in terms of performance on the limited opportunities he's been given. The problem is that the Red Bull has to be driven in a manner that only Verstappen has been able to unlock. While Christian Horner and Helmut Marko will face a lot of heat for the step that they've taken, this is arguably something where the team has tried to make the best of a bad situation.
Red Bull
First, let's look at it from Red Bull's perspective. The first few races have shown that the car has continued to hold on to a trait that makes its peak performance accessible only to someone like Max Verstappen.
Alex Albon perfectly explained the car design and how it needs to be driven. He compared the car's front end to a mouse cursor with the sensitivity increased to the maximum. While Verstappen has been able to get on top of it and still drive, it's quite clear that we've had far too many capable drivers who have been unable to get on top of it.
This is evident with Liam Lawson as well. We can see in the first couple of race weekends that he was all at sea with the car and just unable to achieve what his teammate was.
The reality Red Bull faces at this stage is that the team knows that the car characteristics of the current challenger cannot be drastically changed. This might be possible for the new regulations in 2026, and the team could potentially pursue that, but for now, that would be too big an ask.
Yuki Tsunoda
As the 2025 F1 season began, it was evident that Yuki Tsunoda's association with Red Bull was ending. The Japanese driver has been a part of the sister team since 2021. A part of this association has been aided by Honda being the power unit partner.
The partnership ends in 2026. Even Christian Horner acknowledged last season that beyond a point, it didn't make sense to keep Tsunoda on the junior team if he was never going to be promoted. If nothing changed this season, it's highly unlikely that he would be at Racing Bulls for 2026, and he was always going to be on the market.
This opportunity from Red Bull gives the Japanese driver an opportunity he has been striving for. He's been teamed up with Nyck de Vries, Daniel Ricciardo, Liam Lawson, and now Isack Hadjar. The focus has always been on his teammate, who could get promoted alongside Max Verstappen.
Spending another season with Racing Bulls didn't add much to Tsunoda's resume anyway. An opportunity alongside Verstappen, however, is a sink-or-swim moment. If he succeeds, he will stay at Red Bull beyond 2026. If he doesn't, he's out.
Liam Lawson
While he might not like it much, it is heartbreaking for Liam Lawson. This is arguably Red Bull giving him a second shot. While a shot at the senior team is as good as gone, Lawson now needs to emulate the likes of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon.
There isn't a better example in the sport than those two drivers who were rejected by the Milton Keynes squad and left the team with their reputation in tatters. Yet, they have bounced back.
Lawson was fast-tracked into a situation he was unable to handle. It does not mean he's not a good driver and doesn't deserve to be in F1. On the contrary, the driver is a capable pair of hands and will be able to show what he can do in the Racing Bulls this season. Red Bull has given him a chance to prove to the paddock what he's capable of, and he should look at it in this manner.
What does the future hold?
It does appear that Red Bull has a set plan for what it wants to do in the future (at least one can hope so). Since this is Yuki Tsunoda's last season with the family, he can be alongside Max Verstappen.
On the other hand, Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar are in a shootout of sorts at Racing Bulls. With Helmut Marko's favorite young driver, Arvid Lindblad, already in F2, the team would look to accelerate his debut to F1.
The teenage driver will likely debut in F1 in 2026, and one of Hadjar or Lawson will be moved aside for that. Who will it be? It will come down to how they perform this season.
For Red Bull, Tsunoda gets 2025 to show what he can do in the car while keeping an eye on a potential top-tier driver who could be slotted alongside Verstappen. For instance, George Russell is out of a contract at Mercedes, and Horner has shown interest in him in the past as well.
The situation at Red Bull is not ideal, but there might be a method to the madness as the team tries to dig itself out of this hole.
