Red Bull has decided to replace Sergio Perez with Liam Lawson at the senior team, following a difficult season for the Mexican.
The team had the luxury of being able to promote from within, as Red Bull has historically fielded two teams in Formula 1 since its debut in 2005.
Racing Bulls is the sister team and usually fields their upcoming drivers straight from the Red Bull Junior Academy, with Yuki Tsunoda and Lawson both drivers at the end of last season following the release of Daniel Ricciardo.
Lawson’s promotion to Racing Bulls effectively lined him up for a seat at Red Bull in 2025, after Perez did not improve his form in the season’s final races. Many felt the team overlooked Tsunoda in favour of Lawson, who currently only has 11 starts in F1.
Discussing whether Tsunoda should have been put alongside Verstappen for 2025 on the Autohebdo podcast, journalist Vincent Glo believes there is one reason why the Japanese driver was not given the opportunity.
Yuki Tsunoda has ‘explosive temperament’ that would not work with Max Verstappen
Christian Horner reportedly ‘could not stomach’ promoting Tsunoda to Red Bull, despite the Japanese driver being the stand-out driver at Racing Bulls.
Tsunoda scored the majority of their 46 points in the Constructors’ Championship this year, but is often known for being frantic on the team radio.
The term ‘Traffic Paradise’ entered F1 lexicon because of him, as he will often get agitated over anything other drivers do on track. This posed an issue for Red Bull according to Glo, who felt it would have been hard to contain him and Verstappen in the same team.
“I think that’s why Yuki Tsunoda is still stuck at Racing Bulls, because he is a pilot with an explosive temperament who doesn’t mince his words. The cohabitation risks [with Verstappen] is a bit more complicated than with Liam,” said Glo.
Max Verstappen had his fair share of outbursts this year
While Tsunoda has a reputation among his F1 peers, Verstappen has also had his fair share of outbursts when things have got tough.
He was penalised by the FIA for swearing in an official press conference this year, which led to a war of words between the Grand Prix Drivers Association and President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Verstappen also made a series of outbursts over team radio during a tough Hungarian GP, which led to his engineer Gianpiero Lambaise referring to one of his requests as ‘childish’.
The Dutchman would later be highly critical of his Red Bull team post-race when speaking to media, after feeling they did not listen to him.
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