Red Bull promotes Yuki Tsunoda to top team

Yuki Tsunoda has been announced as the replacement alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing. The announcement was made after Liam Lawson’s performances at both the Australian and Chinese Grand Prix came under scrutiny, claiming he was ‘inexperienced’ behind the wheel of the RB-21. Lawson was announced as the 2nd driver for the successful Red Bull team after the retraction of Sergio Perez’s contract in December 2024. Lawson debuted at the Red Bull junior team, formerly named Scuderia Alpha Tauri in 2023 after Daniel Riccardo was out with injury from the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, and later replacing him as a full time Racing Bulls driver from the 2024 United States Grand Prix.

Lawson joined Tsunoda at Racing Bulls, who became the team’s ‘first’ driver in 2023 after the departure of Pierre Gasly from the team. Tsunoda has consistently performed and improved having been nurtured by the junior team after joining Formula 1 in 2021, delivering notable performances throughout his career. Lawson delivered, in his time in the Red Bull seat, what can only be described as disastrous when compared to Verstappen who did not qualify outside the first two rows or finish outside the top 5.  Tsunoda moves up to a difficult position as the teammate of Max Verstappen, 4-time World Champion, often dubbed as the ‘cursed seat of Formula 1’.

But the question is, why now? Why deliver a brutal driver swap after only two races. The answer is simple according to Red Bull believing that Lawson should be ‘nurtured’ and Christian Horner describing a ‘duty of care’ to Lawson as he embarks on his first full season in F1. Red Bull will inevitably face scrutiny as to why the swap was so soon, a trend that's followed in the last few seasons from mid season driver swaps such as Kyviat and Gasly. When questioned after the Chinese Grand Prix, Lawson said ‘I don’t really have time’ highlighting the inevitability of a brutal driver swap.

Yuki Tsunoda will now be racing in a championship fighting car as Helmut Marko described Tsunoda as “a different Yuki from the years before". While Tsunoda has had less experience of testing behind the wheel of a Red Bull, his experience of Formula 1 more widely will be drawn upon as he embarks on a new era of his career during what is already panning out to be a momentous 2025 Formula 1 season.