After Zak Brown questioned Red Bull’s “strange” decision to promote Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda, the New Zealander has quipped that probably comes from the McLaren chief being “hurt” after he called out their anthem.

Red Bull announced in December that they had parted ways with Sergio Perez with immediate effect and that Lawson would replace him as Max Verstappen’s F1 2025 team-mate.

Liam Lawson: Now it’s my time

So far it hasn’t gone according to plan.

Lawson failed to make it out of Q1 at the Australian Grand Prix before crashing in the race while on Friday he suffered another early qualifying exit, the slowest of all in SQ1 for the Chinese GP Sprint.

Although he put in a fighting performance in the Sprint, qualifying was another blow for the driver who said it was “not good enough” as he again finished slowest of all.

He has yet to score a single point this season.

F1 2025 head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

In sharp contrast, Tsunoda qualified a career-high P5 in Australia before a strategy blunder from his pit wall cost him. He lined up P8 in Saturday’s Sprint and scored points, bringing his Racing Bulls car home in sixth place. He followed that up with a P9 in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix.

It had Brown declaring that the Japanese racer is “probably the guy who should be in the Red Bull if you look at how he’s performed, but they seem to make some strange driver choices from time to time.”

Lawson jabbed back, saying he reckons Brown is smarting after he called it “complete bullsh*t” that McLaren play the British anthem when the team should use the New Zealand anthem in honour of McLaren founder, Bruce McLaren

Telling The Telegraph that he “couldn’t care less” what Brown said, Lawson added: “I think he’s still hurt because I talked about his national anthem.”

And on the list of things Lawson couldn’t care less about, Tsunoda missing out on a Red Bull promotion.

Asked if he had sympathy for the Japanese driver, the 22-year-old said: “Honestly? No.

“You can’t in this sport, and anyway if I look back over our career, I was team-mates with him in F3 and I beat him. In Euro Formula I was team-mates with him in New Zealand, and I beat him there.

“And then in F1 last season, I think honestly, if I look at all the times he got promoted instead of me in those early years, then no.

“He’s had his time. Now it’s my time.”

But while Lawson has found himself in the midst of another difficult weekend, he insists he has the confidence to get through it.

“As much as it is hard, and it sucked at the time, to be able to deal with the pressure of driving in Formula 1 you need to have exposure to that,” he said. “Otherwise you’re just not ready for it when you’re here.”

“I’ve never lost confidence in me,” he added. “I know this weekend’s going to be pretty tough, on a new track. But every weekend I spend in this car, I’m learning.”

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