Red Bull left Liam Lawson as a teammate Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen After only two rounds of the season and replaced it with Yuki Tsunoda on Thursday.
Lawson received the Red Bull seat despite not having previously driven a complete F1 season and fought immediately. The New Zealander did not get any point, crashed through the opening of the season Australian Grand Prix and qualified in the last place for the China Grand Prix and his Sprint career.
Tsunoda moves from the second Red Bull team, Racing Bulls, on time for his Japanese head doctor next week. Lawson will take the place of Tsunoda in Racing Bulls with the rookie Isack Hadjar.
Change is a sign of how Cut F1 can be and the admission that Red Bull made the wrong decision in choosing Lawson. He completed only 11 F1 races of his career before this season and was typically slower than Tsunoda in his six races as teammates last year.
“It has been difficult to see Liam fight with the (car) in the first two races and, as a result, we have collectively made the decision to make an early change,” said Christian Horner, director of the Red Bull team, in a statement.
“We entered the 2025 season with two ambitions, to retain the World Pilot Championship and claim the title of world builders and this is a purely sports decision.”
Horner acknowledged that there was a job to do with the team’s RB21 car and said that Tsunoda’s experience will be beneficial to help develop it.
“We have a duty to protect and develop Liam and, together, we see that after such a difficult beginning it makes sense to act quickly so that Liam can gain experience, since he continues his F1 career with Racing Bulls, an environment and a team that knows very well,” said Horner.
Replace Lawson so fast is in a marked contrast to the patience shown to the former teammate of Verstappen, Sergio Pérez, who was given a two -year contract extension in the middle of a disappointing 2024 season. The team eventually Pérez’s fall For Lawson in December after four years.
Lawson talked publicly about his difficulties with the RB21 car, saying that Sunday was “complicated” driving and had a “very small window” so that the configuration was competitive. That echoed Pérez’s comments last year that the car became more and more difficult to handle as Red Bull’s development leaned towards Verstappen’s driving style.
Tsunoda, 24, has been in F1 since 2021 with a better championship of his career in the 12th year and has not yet ended on the podium. Previously he faced criticism within the broader operation of Red Bull for a tendency to vent their frustrations on the radio during the races.
Tsunoda’s long -term future is complicated by his personal support from Honda, which is replaced as a supplier of Red Bull engines at the end of the year before New Deal with Ford From 2026. Honda will supply Aston Martin next season.
Racing Bulls team director Laurent Mekies said he was “incredibly proud” by Tsunoda for making the transfer to Red Bull. “His progress last year, and more recently since the beginning of 2025, it has been nothing less than sensational,” he said.
Tsunoda becomes the sixth teammate of Verstappen in 10 seasons with Red Bull. It is the first time that the main team of Red Bull has changed the pilots in the middle of the season since 2019, when Pierre Gasly was retired by Alex Albon after 12 races.
Verstappen is the only Red Bull pilot to win a race in almost two years and the only one on the podium in almost a year. He has scored all the points of the team in the four races since Pérez took the tenth place in Las Vegas in November.
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