Yuki Tsunoda replaces Liam Lawson at Red Bull Racing
If you’ve been following Formula 1 for a good while, you may know about the tumultuous situation over at Red Bull Racing.
The second driver in the team, Liam Lawson, has had dreadful results since the season started (crashing in the Australian GP, P15 in Shanghai before disqualifications). This has prompted the Red Bull Racing management to swap him with Yuki Tsunoda as the second driver in the team.
This means Lawson drops to the junior Racing Bull squad alongside rookie Isack Hadjar, and we will see these changes in the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix weekend in Suzuka, which will take place this April 4 to 6.
For some context on RBR’s “cursed” second seat:
With four-time world champion Max Verstappen as the team’s obvious number one driver, the second seat has been riddled with bad luck as far back as 2018, with drivers such as Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, and most recently, Liam Lawson, not being able to keep up or manage the car.
Red Bull Racing has always had a second team where they would pick up and promote drivers, with the most senior of the drivers being Yuki Tsunoda. He debuted with the team back in 2021 (when it was known as AlphaTauri), where he consistently outscored teammates Nyck de Vries, Ricciardo, and even Lawson in the latter half of 2024.
With Sergio Perez having left RBR at the end of 2024, all eyes were on Tsunoda being promoted to the main team for this season. To everyone’s surprise, Lawson was suddenly picked over the seasoned Japanese racer, which led to this current series of events.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how Tsunoda adapts to the current car, as he does not have the same amount of time and experience as the others when they swapped over to new teams at the start of the year.
Photo from Formula 1
