Red Bull dropped Liam Lawson as the teammate of Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen after just two rounds of the season and replaced him with Yuki Tsunoda on Thursday.
Lawson was given the Red Bull seat despite not having previously driven a full F1 season and struggled immediately. The New Zealander did not score any points, crashed out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and qualified in last place for the Chinese Grand Prix and its sprint race.
Tsunoda moves up from Red Bull’s second team, Racing Bulls, in time for his home Japanese GP next week. Lawson will take Tsunoda’s place at Racing Bulls alongside rookie Isack Hadjar.
The change is a sign of how cut-throat F1 can be and an admission that Red Bull made the wrong choice in picking Lawson. He completed only 11 career F1 races before this season and was typically slower than Tsunoda across their six races as teammates last year.
“It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the (car) at the first two races and as a result we have collectively taken the decision to make an early switch,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said in a statement.
“We came into the 2025 season with two ambitions, to retain the world drivers’ championship and to reclaim the world constructors’ title and this is a purely sporting decision.”
Horner acknowledged there was work to be done with the team’s RB21 car and said Tsunoda’s experience will prove beneficial in helping to develop it.
“We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and, together, we see that after such a difficult start it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well,” Horner said.
Replacing Lawson so quickly is in stark contrast to the patience shown Verstappen’s former teammate Sergio Perez, who was handed a two-year contract extension midway through a disappointing 2024 season. The team eventually dropped Perez for Lawson in December after four years.
Lawson spoke publicly about his difficulties with the RB21 car, saying on Sunday it was “tricky” to drive and had a “very small window” for the setup to be competitive. That echoed comments from Perez last year that the car became increasingly difficult to handle as Red Bull’s development work leaned toward Verstappen’s driving style.
The 24-year-old Tsunoda has been in F1 since 2021 with a career-best championship placing of 12th last year and has yet to finish on the podium. He’s previously faced criticism within the broader Red Bull operation for a tendency to vent his frustrations over the radio during races.
Tsunoda’s long-term future is complicated by his personal backing from Honda, which is being replaced as Red Bull’s engine supplier at the end of the year ahead of a new deal with Ford from 2026. Honda will supply Aston Martin next season.
Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies said he was “incredibly proud” of Tsunoda for making the move to Red Bull. “His progress last year, and more recently from the very start of 2025, has been nothing less than sensational,” he said.
Tsunoda becomes Verstappen’s sixth teammate in 10 seasons with Red Bull. It’s the first time that the main Red Bull team has changed drivers midseason since 2019 when Pierre Gasly was dropped for Alex Albon after 12 races.
Verstappen is the only Red Bull driver to win a race in almost two years and the only one on the podium in nearly a year. He’s scored all of the team’s points in the four races since Perez placed 10th in Las Vegas in November.
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