Red Bull's Driver Dilemma: The Path to a Coveted F1 Seat

Red Bull. The team renowned for its infamous driver contracts and controversies. Over the past two decades, we have seen them mix, chop and change drivers several times, switching them and demoting them with ease. The driver’s programme is watched over by Dr Helmut Marko, a good friend of the late Dietrich Mateschitz, the founding owner of Red Bull. Marko tolerates no nonsense from his drivers and demands high performance results, whether they are emerging from the Junior series or seasoned veterans. Gasly, Kyvat, Albon and De Vries are all examples of Red Bull team drivers that have seen their careers stripped away after a less than stellar run of results.

Historically, Red Bull are infamous for their silly season dramas, and that streak has continued into the 2024 winter break. Perez’s decision to leave the team is similar to that of Daniel Riccardo – leaving “by their own terms” without getting a proper chance to genuinely say goodbye to both the team and the fans. The very simplistic notion that the departure was “by his own terms” is susceptible to a highly successful challenge – Perez himself said in December that he wanted to stay in F1, with Red Bull, as long as possible

But the focus and intent behind this blog is not about the past histrionics of Red Bull and their driver line up. I’m more interested in what happened next.

Less than 24 hours after Perez’s planned end of season departure declaration, Red Bull announced that the New Zealander, Liam Lawson would be the replacement driving partner for Verstappen in 2025.

Currently aged 22, Lawson finished the 2022 F2 Season in overall 3rd place. “Since then Lawson has participated in Formula E and acted as the reserve driver for RB (formerly known as AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso), which prior to his death was also owned by Red Bull owner Mateschitz. In 2023, Lawson was called upon to deputise in several races for the AlphaTauri driver, Daniel Riccardo. 

During his deputising duties, Lawson made his biggest mark in the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix by not only reaching Q3, placing 10th in qualifying, 1 spot above Verstappen, and ultimately achieving a P9 finish in the race itself  As a result of Lawson’s elevated performances in 2023, there was genuine question of a 3 way competition between, Lawson, Tsunoda and Ricardo for the 2 driving seats at AlphaTauri, renamed as Visa Cash App RB (RB), for the 2024 season. Ultimately the 2023 driver line up would remain unchanged with Tsunoda and Ricardo retaining their positions for the 2024 season.

Ricardo struggled during the 20024 season and by the time of the Singapore Grand Prix, in September, had only scored 12 points much lower than that of his teammate Tsunoda who had 22 points. Ricardo was failing to meet the performances expected of him by the team and Marko had supposedly been pushing for his departure for over 3 months, since the June 2024 Spanish Grand Prix. In September 2024 after the Singapore Grand Prix, Ricardo succumbed and announced his immediate but “voluntary” departure from RB.

By the time of the US Grand Prix in October 2024, Marko had achieved his aim of having Lawson replace Ricardo as a full-time driver at RB.Lawson didn’t fail to disappoint by driving superbly in his fulltime driver debut and claiming P9, this being done despite being handed a 10-point grid penalty. Lawson was again in the points in the Brazilian Grand Prix achieving a P9 position.However in his head-to-head with Tsunoda, Lawson came out second, with Tsunoda outqualifying Lawson six nil and outscoring him 8 points to 4.

Compared to Tsunoda’s experience of driving in 87 races, Lawson has only driven in a paltry 11 races.

So despite Lawson’s inferior results to Tsunoda in the last 6 races of the 2024 season, to go with his experience of driving in many fewer races, confusingly the decision had been made to promote Lawson from RB to Red Bull as opposed to Tsunoda.

No doubt the decision to promote Lawson is complex and nuanced.

Unfortunately, fans understanding of events have not been helped by Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner’s at worst disingenuous and at best banal attempt at justification bysaying, “Eleven races is a short amount of time” and that “the margins to Yuki were very tight.”

The lack of rational in Horner’s missives have created a vacuum which has been filled by online speculation, conspiracies and various theories. One of the most popular and probably logical reason being peddled for Tsunoda being overlooked is that there has been a breakdown, over several years, of sponsorship relationships. The underlying facts being  that Tsunoda, being Japanese, has for many years been championed by Honda, a Japanese engine manufacturer. Since 2018 Honda has been the engine supplier to both sister teams Red Bull and RB including RB’s previous incarnations Toro Roso and AlphaTauri. Speculation suggests that Honda was instrumental in Tsunoda getting the seat at AlphaTauri for the 2021 season.   Due to the supposed breakdown in relations between Red Bull and Honda, following the expiry of the current engine supply agreement between them at the end of the 2025 season, Red Bull have announced that they plan to construct and supply their own engines starting in 2026 whilst at that time Honda will become the engine supplier to Aston Martin. In the highly commercialised politics of F1, it’s highly likely that Tsunoda’s umbilical link to Honda may have hurt him in his pursuit of a Red Bull seat.

On a personal human level it’s a sad situation for Tsunoda, who seems resigned to another fruitless year at RB, commenting following the Lawson Red Bull announcement “was nothing more [he] could do”.

But the loss of a seat at Red Bull may be the least of Tsunoda’s problems, if Red Bull decides that following the end of their tie up with Honda, they are absolved of their obligation to give Tsunoda a continuing seat at RB.

Horner has in fact alluded to such direction of thought by hinting for the first time that after 5 years with the junior team, perhaps it would be for the best if they were to let Tsunoda go.

The bigger question is, why choose Lawson and not any of the other young cohort of drivers or other more experienced older drivers?

 Sources, unnamed, suggest that whilst Tsunoda may have beaten him on a head to head basis, Lawson was perceived to have shown great potential during his 11 career races to date, in addition his rookie statistics completely outshone Tsunoda’s. Based on this Red Bull executives probably believe that there is plenty of untapped potential still left undiscovered in Lawson. Another potential explanation being that they need to prepared for the possibility of Verstappen’s departure should it come within the next few years. Whilst Verstappen’s contract may extend to the end of the 2028 season, he is on record as stating that he will retire on becoming a father, which he is about to achieve in 2025, thus potentially bringing an end to the Red Bull Verstappen partnership closer to reality. Is the appointment of Lawson a move by Red Bull to nurture a future leader to fill Verstappen’s vacant shoes?

Despite the outcries the fact remains – Lawson WILL drive for Red Bull Oracle Racing in 2025.

The unknown being whether he can survive and thrive in a one-sided team heavily skewed towards Verstappen, unlike others before him like, Albon and Gasly, who if you excuse the pun, crashed and burned.

Will Lawson be the exception to the rule to date that in a F1 team involving Verstappen, only one driver exhibits longevity…VERSTAPPEN!! In the case of Lawson racing in Red Bull colours which maxim will hold sway at the end of the 2025 season; “third time’s the charm" or “another one bites the dust”?

The Lawson - Tsunoda situation is a clear instance of drivers and fans being sidelined helpless spectators when commercial and political considerations are shown to supersede; talent, experience and past performance consideration when F1 teams take decisions on their driver line up.