Should Red Bull Racing have signed Yuki Tsunoda to the main team in place of Liam Lawson? 

That’s what McLaren team boss Zak Brown has been saying after a challenging Australian Grand Prix ended with Lawson in the wall — but the New Zealander isn’t interested in what the competition has to say.

Liam Lawson: “I couldn’t care less what Zak says”

It’s safe to say that Liam Lawson didn’t have the Red Bull debut he’d been hoping for in Australia.

The driver struggled to set a quick lap time in practice, with both Racing Bulls drivers Isack Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda ending up faster on the charts.

It was a similar story in qualifying, with Tsunoda qualifying fifth, Hadjar 11th, and Lawson down in 18th.

To make matters worse, Lawson retired from the Grand Prix after losing control of his Red Bull under wet conditions, crashing into the wall. All the while, teammate Max Verstappen took second, while Tsunoda finished the race in 12th.

While the trick conditions caught out rookies and veterans alike, naysayers took the opportunity to call into question Red Bull’s decision to promote Lawson to the team instead of Tsunoda.

“Yuki did a great job,” Brown told Sky Sports F1 after the race, adding 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.”

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It’s the kind of barbed comment designed to pierce Red Bull’s armor and irritate the competition, but when he was asked about Brown’s statement in the build-up to the Chinese Grand Prix, Lawson was blunt.

“I couldn’t care less what Zak says,” he stated.

“I haven’t spoken to him, I don’t really think ever, and I haven’t read any social media for the last two weeks.”

A defensive statement indeed, but a warranted one.

Immediately after, Lawson was quizzed on how he felt about the move to Red Bull, and if he was experiencing a greater pressure to perform this season compared to last.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think last year it was even more different because I had no seat.

“I had those races, but I had no guarantee for this year, so each race sort of felt like an evaluation for just being in Formula 1.”

Further, Lawson acknowledged the cutthroat nature of his team.

“Obviously I know that there’s no guarantee in Formula 1. I know how Red Bull is, and that if you go through half the year not performing, that they’ll have no difficulty in switching you,” he said.

“So it’s not that I have a guarantee, but it’s more, you know, we’ve done the prep before the season and it’s a more, I guess, rounded set-up that I’ve had now than I’ve ever had in previous years.”

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