Former AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has made it clear that he feels Red Bull made the wrong call with Liam Lawson.

In fact, Tost claimed that Liam Lawson wouldn’t be as fast as Yuki Tsunoda, even if a team gave him “100 years” to get up to speed.

Franz Tost’s brutal Liam Lawson verdict

After the first two practice sessions of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, things are looking up for Red Bull Racing.

Ahead of the weekend, the team initiated a driver swap, demoting Liam Lawson back to Racing Bulls and instead bringing the more experienced Yuki Tsunoda up to the top team.

Lawson, the team noted, had struggled to adapt to Red Bull Racing and was demoted in order to allow him to further develop as a driver. Having failed to score a single point in the first two races of the year, the New Zealander had not lived up to the team’s expectations as it looks to regain its grasp on the World Constructors’ Championship.

Now, with Tsunoda behind the wheel, there seems to be less of a disparity between teammates, though the real test of performance will come during both qualifying and the race.

It has also provided Franz Tost — former team principal of Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri — to get honest about his perspective on the affair.

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Speaking to ORF, Tost stated that Tsunoda’s FP1 performance alone should be “confirmation” that the team made the right call in giving him Lawson’s Red Bull seat.

“Yuki has incredible natural speed, I’ve been saying that for years,” Tost said.

“And now he just needs to, let me say, implement everything correctly.

“He’s sometimes still too emotional in the car, which was perhaps one of the reasons why they didn’t take him instead of Lawson.”

Tost retired from Formula 1 in 2023, which meant he hasn’t had much of a say in the recent goings-on of the team. However, he also had several years to work with Tsunoda in order to understand his driving style — so Tost’s perspective is quite valuable here.

Tost continued to discuss Tsunoda’s “natural speed” in order to argue that it makes him “absolutely one of the best Formula 1 drivers.”

All that’s lacking is consistency and emotional control, but Tsunoda has been addressing both of those issues; should he continue that trend, “then it will certainly be a very, very good season for Red Bull Racing and for Yuki Tsunoda.”

Further, Tost criticized Red Bull for its decision to promote Liam Lawson because, in his eyes, “Liam is simply too slow.”

Nevermind the fact that Lawson hadn’t had any experience on the two tracks that started the 2025 season, Albert Park and Shanghai; the former Toro Rosso feels there is simply an inherent difference between the skillsets of Tsunoda and Lawson.

“You can give him 100 years, he won’t be as fast as Yuki,” he said of Lawson.

“And Yuki is more experienced, so what does it matter? It’s a very simple decision.”

It took a while for the decision to be made, but make it Red Bull has. Now we’ll see of Tost’s confidence in Tsunoda is valid, or if it has been misplaced.

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