Red Bull ignored key data from pre-season testing that could have prevented Liam Lawson saga

Liam Lawson spoke to media after the Chinese Grand Prix like a man who knew his time was up before he had even started.

Casting a dejected figure, Lawson could offer no explanation for the large performance deficit between him and Max Verstappen after finishing P15 on the road.

Lawson was meant to be the man who could put Red Bull back in contention for the Constructors’ Championship by being a suitable rear-gunner to Verstappen, after Sergio Perez cost the team millions in prize money in 2024 by consistently finishing outside of the top five.

Red Bull had three potential options to replace the Mexican: Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, or Carlos Sainz.

Sainz had emerged on the market following Ferrari’s decision to replace him with Lewis Hamilton, but a reunion with Verstappen during heightened tensions with senior management was not seen as desirable given their previous history.

Tsunoda had the experience but lacked the consistency and mental ability to go up against Verstappen in the same team according to Helmut Marko, so they sided with Lawson who only had 11 Grands Prix under his belt.

In hindsight, it might have been a hasty decision by Red Bull, but the signs were there in pre-season testing that Lawson was going to find his first races at the team an uphill struggle.

Liam Lawson’s times in testing was enough to cause concern in Red Bull camp

By their own admission, Red Bull did not have the best pre-season test at Bahrain in February. Technical director Pierre Wache said it wasn’t as “smooth” as expected, but insisted they knew which areas they needed to work on to make their car on-par with rivals McLaren and Ferrari.

Was Wache simply managing expectations? Based on Verstappen’s scrappy final day of testing and Lawson’s race runs on day two, it was clear something was awry with the RB21.

Lawson’s race run was the biggest piece of evidence that Red Bull was in trouble, with his lap times on the C2 hard tyre coming in at an average of nine-tenths slower than Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc on the same rubber.

There is the caveat that Red Bull was running higher fuel and different engine modes, but when you consider Lawson’s overall best time was six-tenths slower than Verstappen’s throughout the entire test, you could conclude that he was simply not as comfortable in the RB21 as his teammate.

Red Bull opted not to run either specification of the medium tyre for a race run, but crucially they ended three days with Lawson having the least amount of milage (149 laps) of all the rookies, second-to-last after Lance Stroll who would likely be higher if he did not end his running on day three early due to feeling ill.

Liam Lawson’s pace in testing translates on race weekends

At Melbourne, Lawson was over a second slower than Verstappen in Q1 before being knocked out early in the session. Red Bull made a change to the suspension setup in Parc Ferme which would require him to start from the pits, all with the aim of making the car easier to drive.

The tricky conditions did not make things any easier, but Lawson’s comeback attempt ended early when he crashed after Red Bull gambled on dry tyres in damp conditions.

China would prove to be another difficult test, given it has always been a circuit with high tyre attrition. Lawson struggled to advance out of Q1 again, setting a lap time that was six-tenths off what would have got him into the top 16 places.

The same suspension setup changed in parc ferme conditions, although this time it was somewhat forgivable since Lawson only had an hour of practice and the track evolution required a lot of prior car knowledge.

During the Grand Prix he made slow progress, overtaking both Sauber’s before sitting in P17 for most of the race. When he switched to the Hard tyre later on in the race, Lawson’s times were half a second slower than Verstappen’s on the same tyre.

He finished behind fellow rookie Isack Hadjar who made two pit stops and is supposed to be in an inferior car. Lawson’s radio message at the end of the race to his engineer said it all, there was nothing left he could do to get more performance out of the RB21.

• READ MORE: Ranking every driver to race for Red Bull during their 20 years in F1 including Max Verstappen vs Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull has itself to blame for this mess

The billionaire Thai owners of Red Bull voiced concerns about Lawson after the first two races, with a summit called in Dubai in the days after to address the situation.

The second Red Bull seat has always been an enigma stretching back to Daniil Kvyat’s sporadic performances when partnered with Daniel Ricciardo. Things got worse when Verstappen joined and it is often the case that if he finds it tough, he teammates struggle even more.

Tsunoda will now be his sixth teammate since he joined them in 2016. Alex Albon has previously warned incoming drivers about Verstappen’s tendency to prefer a sharp car, so will Tsunoda’s experience make him perform better than Lawson?

It is clear Lawson would have benefitted from extra milage in testing and runs in Red Bull’s old-spec cars from 2022 and 2023 to understand the complex trade-off that must be made when setting up in the current cars.

Red Bull chose to throw him in at the deep end and potentially ignored the warning signs early on, and Lawson has emerged with the unwanted record of having the shortest career in the teams history. If they lose the Constructors’ Championship by small margins, they will only have themselves to blame.