Formula 1’s Liam Lawson is in a downward spiral as the New Zealand driver has already faced speculation about being replaced just two races into the 2025 season.
This is simply a mixture of Red Bull’s lack of adequate promotion processes and a complete failure from Lawson to step up to the plate in the aftermath of Sergio Perez’s firing at the end of last season.
Lawson was promised by team principal Christian Horner and other Red Bull personnel that he would receive support and that the team was willing to stand by their driver who at the time had only 11 Formula 1 starts to his name. This is looking more and more unlikely as the situation develops with Yuki Tsunoda firming to be yet another Red Bull promotion as the Milton Keynes outfit continues its cycle to find performance out of a second driver.
Liam Lawson. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
Let us start with Lawson himself and how he has performed in both Australia and China. It is critical background information that Lawson hasn’t raced at either of these tracks before his Red Bull season and it showed badly.
Albert Park’s qualifying had been hampered by a technical issue which saw him complete only two laps in FP3 on Saturday morning. The Kiwi could only manage 18th fastest at the end of Q1 being promptly knocked out. He was only faster than the two Haas drivers including Oliver Bearman who did not feature due to multiple crashes early in the weekend.
Lawson was expected to make significant progress in the Grand Prix proper and didn’t make any real impression before crashing on lap 47/57 due to his medium tyres not being suitable for the wet conditions.
China posed two new opportunities given it was a sprint race weekend. Lawson was 20th and last in both qualifying sessions which for Red Bull is a new all-time low. Red Bull’s number 30 did show some promise in the sprint race passing cars and whilst he made some minor contact with Australian Jack Doohan Lawson got himself to P14 at the end of the sprint race. Realistically, points were never possible so to demonstrate some overtaking and race craft was the brightest spark in his two race weekends. The race itself was disappointing. Lawson finished 12th on the road but it must be taken into account this was ahead of a 10-second penalty for Doohan, Gabriel Bortoleto who spun off on lap 1, Nico Hulkenberg who also spun at turn 3 and Yuki Tsunoda who had his front wing disintegrate in front of him. In other words, Lawson was the slowest man on track taking into account others’ mistakes or misfortune.
Shifting the blame to Red Bull now, after all the team chose to promote Lawson instead of much more experienced and in-form Tsunoda. This has been a cycle now that has continued for 6 years since Pierre Gasly partnered with Max Verstappen for the first half of 2019.
Red Bull has grown increasingly impatient in recent years and has tried rookies such as Alex Albon and veterans like Sergio Perez. All of this has been to no avail. Lawson seems to be on the verge of dismissal already and Helmut Marko being seen in Alpine’s hospitality unit leaves no doubt in my mind that Franco Colapinto’s services have been requested. Lawson may be out of Formula 1 after Japan and just 14 races into his career. This would be a shame and one of the biggest wastes of a junior talent. This fault has to be at Red Bull’s door and with how competitive F1 is these days he may never get another opportunity.
What do I think will happen? I believe Liam Lawson will be given one final chance in Japan to show something. A better weekend qualifying just outside the top 10 and points could give him time. This is a far-fetched wish and unfortunately, I suspect Tsunoda will inherit that Red Bull seat for Bahrain.
Tsunoda could easily drown under the pressure as well and so I’m concerned yet another driver will fail the lofty expectations of the senior team.
Lawson was never a superstar talent in Super Formula or Formula 2 but was versatile in different machinery. To see him struggle like this and be dead last shouldn’t be entirely a criticism of his ability as a racing driver but should be analysed as underperformance under pressure with a volatile machine that only an all-time great such as Max Verstappen can deal with. Lawson will be the focus point in Japan whether he likes it or not as he may have one final race to show he deserves to stay in Formula 1.
