Alpine takes a subtle dig at Red Bull's Liam Lawson-Yuki Tsunoda fiasco

Alpine F1 has taken a subtle dig at Red Bull's decision to swap Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda to be Max Verstappen's new teammate after just two races into the 2025 season. The Austrian team's decision has caught a lot of flak as the Kiwi driver, hired just a couple of months ago, was not much time to bed himself in the new environment.

The 23-year-old didn't score any points in the Australia and China races and qualified P20 in both Sprint Qualifying and Qualifying at the Shanghai International Circuit last weekend.

Lawson was demoted to the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team after senior Red Bull members met in Dubai following the F1 Chinese Grand Prix. It was decided that Tsunoda would race alongside Verstappen from the Japanese GP onwards, coincidentally the new member's home race.

The Milton Keynes outfit's decision has set social media ablaze with many criticizing the world champion's management of its drivers. Alpine F1, which has faced questions about its own internal management on several occasions, hinted at one of the grid's biggest developments in recent years in a post on Threads.

"Haven’t logged in for a bit today… anything new? 🤔 " it wrote.

Post by @alpinef1team

View on Threads

Several other prominent names have opined on the swap.

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F1 commentator questions Red Bull over its driver swap

Sky Sports commentator David Croft called out Red Bull for making the "wrong decisions" frequently regarding its driver lineup. The 54-year-old said:

"What I'd love to know is how they made the decision about Liam Lawson in the first place. They have all the data from RB, it's their sister team. They can compare Max Verstappen to Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda to Checo [Sergio] Perez, as it was last year. They've got all the data they need to make the right decision, but they seem to keep making the wrong decision."

"Checo Perez didn't exactly flourish from the Miami Grand Prix in 2023 onwards. Liam Lawson seemed like a decent appointment from the outside, but what data did they use, and why is it now after two races they're going to discard that data and bring in Yuki Tsunoda, who was the driver that they didn't think worthy of and haven't thought worthy of for some time now," David Croft added.

24-year-old Yuki Tsunoda will be Max Verstappen's sixth teammate at Red Bull in his eight years on the team.