Liam Lawson’s struggles at the Chinese Grand Prix began early in the race, his radio messages to his race engineer Richard Wood highlighting his problems.

Having replaced Sergio Perez at Red Bull, Lawson is finding life in the RB21 a lot more difficult than he, or anyone else, expected.

Liam Lawson: Dude, it lasted one lap

Yet to get out of Q1 in three attempts and without a single point on the board, there are already rumours that Lawson days at Red Bull are numbered.

According to speculation, he could be replaced as early as round three, the Japanese Grand Prix, with either Yuki Tsunoda or Isack Hadjar stepping into the RB21.

And there’s no guarantee Lawson would be dropped into the Racing Bulls F1 car, he could be dropped altogether.

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Lawson revealed he’s struggling to find the perfect setup for the RB21, missing what he called a “small” window.

“It’s not that I don’t feel confident,” said the New Zealander after qualifying. “But the window is so small that, right now, I just seem to miss it. I just need to get a handle on it. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Although Red Bull made changes to the car’s setup, leading to a start for the driver who was already down in 20th place on the grid, Lawson wasn’t able to recover.

“We tried something with the setup to learn something,” he said. “It was quite a big step and unfortunately it just didn’t work.

“A lot to learn from this weekend – a lot for me personally to get on top of as well.

“It’s just been extremely tough. I’ll be spending this week going very heavily into absolutely everything to try and obviously do a better job.”

His struggles on Sunday were laid bare in his radio messages with his race engineer Richard Woods.

Liam Lawson’s radio transcript

Lap 3: Starting from the pit lane, Lawson quickly found himself running in a DRS train that he could not escape: “Yeah, it’s just a train right now.”

Lap 5: Lawson began to struggle, Woods: “Okay, we see the snaps through the low speed, think about push toggle.”

Lap 8: Lawson’s RB21 began to suffer with tyre wear, “Struggling more with the fronts still at the moment.”

Lap 12: Asked for a balance update, Lawson told Woods: “Just struggling with the bumps on entry, rear on exit.”

Lap 15: Trying to hold off Lewis Hamilton, Lawson: “Mate, I do not have the grip to fight this.”

Lap 18: Lawson: “Exits are really poor on traction as well.”

He pitted, switching from medium tyres to hards.

Lap 23: The new tyres did not help, Lawson: “I’m pushing through the fronts a little bit, and then I’m getting snaps later on the exit. Low-speed exit’s really poor traction as well.”

Lap 27: Lawson: “I’m struggling so much at the front.”

Pitting for a second time, a strategy that was not optimal, Lawson swapped hard for hard tyres.

Lap 34: Four laps after his pit stop, Lawson: “The fronts are really starting to drop, but honestly the rear on exit is so poor.”

Lap 38: Lawson: “I have no balance, absolutely none.”

Lap 39: Lawson asked for advice: “On tyres, is there anything else I can do?”

Lap 41: Woods tried to encourage his driver: “I know it’s tough, but you are catching this group ahead of you. Keep them as a target.”

Lap 49: Lawson: “Yeah, front is absolutely gone.”

Lap 54: Two laps before the end of the Grand Prix, Lawson: “I can’t turn the car at all.”

Chequered flag: Woods summed up Lawson’s race: “Yeah, that was a bit of a slog today.”

Chequered flag: Lawson’s response: “Dude, it lasted one lap, balance was good for one lap, and then it’s just, no fronts, and then I can’t get on power.”

Red Bull RB21 is not ‘driver-centric’

But with Max Verstappen second in the Drivers’ standings while Lawson has yet to score a point, the Kiwi’s struggles have once again raised the question have Red Bull designed a car for Verstappen?

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner denied this.

“The car is difficult to drive and Max is able to adjust to that,” Horner said.

“Liam is, confidence-wise, he’s struggling with the car at the moment, which is why we made some significant changes [for the Chinese Grand Prix] to see if we could find a more confidence-inspiring set-up.

“If I think back to the beginning of ’22, we had quite a stable car but with quite a bit of understeer, which obviously Max hates.

“We had an upgrade in Spain where we put a lot more front into the car and Max made a big step forward. Checo [Perez] sort of nose-dived from that point.

“So you’ve got to produce the quickest car and you’re driven by the information that you have and the data that you have.

“As a team, we don’t set out to make a car driver-centric, you just work on the info that you have and the feedback that you have to produce the fastest car that you can. That’s obviously served us very well with 122 victories.”

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