Jacques Villeneuve ‘could hear’ costly change from Liam Lawson before Red Bull demotion, ‘he collapsed’

Jacques Villeneuve believes Liam Lawson left Red Bull with ‘no point’ keeping him at their main F1 team before giving his seat to Yuki Tsunoda at the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Milton Keynes outfit have debuted their new driver line-up at Suzuka this weekend after promoting Tsunoda from Racing Bulls at his home round. Lawson only spent two rounds as a Red Bull driver before re-joining the Faenza team having failed to adapt to the difficult RB21.

Red Bull initially rejected Tsunoda in favour of Lawson as they moved to replace Sergio Perez in December. But team principal Christian Horner says the 24-year-old’s experience can help to improve the RB21 with Red Bull 42 points from McLaren in the F1 constructors’ standings.

Additionally, Red Bull grew frustrated with Lawson’s lack of progress adapting to the RB21 as the 23-year-old failed to get on top of its sharp from end and loose rear. His woes resulted in the Kiwi being the slowest driver through both qualifying sessions at the Chinese Grand Prix.

Jacques Villeneuve feels Liam Lawson left Red Bull no choice as he ‘collapsed’ before demotion

Lawson also appeared to be at a loss as to why the New Zealander could not find speed with his RB21 whilst Max Verstappen sealed P2 in the Australian Grand Prix and P4 in the Chinese GP. The Dutchman even said in Shanghai that Red Bull likely only have the fourth-fastest car.

READ MORE: Who is Racing Bulls F1 driver Liam Lawson? Everything you need to know

Now, Lawson will strive to get his F1 career back on track back at Racing Bulls whilst Red Bull rely on Tsunoda to help Verstappen’s drivers’ title bid from this weekend’s Japanese GP. And 1997 F1 champion Villeneuve claims Lawson left Red Bull with no choice but to demote him.

Villeneuve especially believes Lawson left the writing on the walls at Red Bull given the Kiwi sounded destroyed in China. Red Bull promoted him to replace Perez in the 2025 F1 season as Helmut Marko felt Lawson had the ‘mental strength’ Tsunoda lacked to join Verstappen.

“Ultimately, Tsunoda should have been the one going in right away,” Villeneuve has told Sky Sports. “He had done all the years in the Racing Bulls team, and it’s the team to prepare drivers for the main team.

“But they did not want him in the main team because he made a lot of mistakes and was a little bit out of control sometimes on the radio.

“But then Lawson, who was very strong mentally last year, you could hear it in his comments. This year, he was just brought down, he collapsed. There was no point keeping him there. It would just have done more and more damage to himself as a driver.”

Yuki Tsunoda now has the ‘maturity to survive’ at Red Bull after replacing Liam Lawson

Tsunoda’s apparent lack of mental strength compared to Lawson at Racing Bulls last season was the clear main reason Red Bull snubbed him to replace Perez this year. But the 24-year-old has shown this season a new lease of life that now makes him ready to join Verstappen.

Long-time Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost believes Tsunoda now has the ‘maturity to survive’ at Red Bull after learning a lot over his four full campaigns in Faenza. The Kanagawa native will also hope joining Red Bull leads to Tsunoda’s first podium in Formula 1 this term.