Christian Horner's blunt reply when questioned about Liam Lawson's future at Red Bull

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has added further uncertainty around Liam Lawson's future with the team by claiming that F1 is a performance-based sport. The young Kiwi has been in a spot of bother ever since he joined the team.

The first race of the season was in Australia, and what was quite evident with his first runs in the car was the fact that the driver was just not comfortable with the car and unable to extract lap times that Max Verstappen could. This is the same problem that Red Bull has faced when it comes to teammates of Verstappen ever since Daniel Ricciardo left at the end of 2018.

Since then, there have been multiple drivers that have replaced the Australian, but none of them have been anywhere close to what Verstappen delivers in the car. Pierre Gasly, for instance, lasted half a season, Alex Albon was removed in 18 months as well, while a chunk of Sergio Perez's stay coincided with a dominant car, and hence he was part of the team for much longer.

Liam Lawson has joined the team at a time when the Red Bull is arguably the worst it has been since 2015 (fourth fastest), and hence the gap between him and Max Verstappen is quite visible.

This has also led to speculation around Lawson's future, and there are suggestions that he could be replaced as early as the next race by Yuki Tsunoda.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has done nothing to extinguish those rumors. Talking to Sky Sports, the team principal said that Liam Lawson knows that the sport is performance-based, and that is precisely what is paramount. He said:

"F1 is a pressure business. There's always time pressure. He knows that. Hopefully he will respond accordingly and we will see where we go."

Horner also defended the car designs and swatted away the suggestions that the Red Bull is a difficult car to drive. He said:

"You always go for ultimate performance. Fast cars are never easy to drive but we know there's performance we need to find and we need both drivers up there if there's to be any chance of fighting for a Constructors' Championship, and at the very least the Drivers' Championship you need to have a second car in play. You can't do it one legged."

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Red Bull boss expands on strategy behind Liam Lawson's race

Liam Lawson started the F1 Chinese GP from the pitlane because Red Bull had decided to make radical changes to the car. The driver would make progress during the race but was still a step behind when it came to scoring points.

Talking about the thought process behind the radical setup used for the driver, Horner said that this would help give him and the team enough data to understand more about the car and how the driver can extract a better result from the car. He said:

"We made the decision to take him off the grid, out of parc ferme to try some radical changes on the set-up because you're so limited on testing with these cars, so it made sense to say 'we are starting at the back, let's try and learn something'."

He added:

"We have 56 laps of information with a radically different set-up on the car. That gives huge information back into the factory and system as we look to improve our performance. Liam Lawson is a great little racer. He gets his elbows out, races hard but is just struggling at the moment, finding the limit with this car and getting the most out of the car. As a team we are looking to support him in the best way we can."

If Liam Lawson is replaced by Yuki Tsunoda after just two races that would be a massive blow for the Kiwi and make it even more imperative for Red Bull to build a more driver-friendly car next season.