Red Bull only have themselves to blame for crucial error that could cost them 2025 F1 championship title

When Red Bull decided to replace Sergio Perez with Liam Lawson, there was rightly questions over why they didn’t choose the more experienced Yuki Tsunoda.

The Perez situation had come to the point of no return after a disappointing 2024 season, with his lack of consistency and points scoring leading to Red Bull finishing third in the Constructors’ Championship and costing them million in prize money in the process.

Red Bull did not enjoy the same advantage they had with the dominant RB19, but if it was good enough to win Max Verstappen his fourth title in a row then it was probably in the running for another Constructors’ title.

The team needed another rear-gunner to Verstappen and Lawson showed he had the qualities to mix it up with the front runners, despite only having 11 starts under his belt – only eight of which were last year.

Lawson’s debut at the Dutch Grand Prix in 2023 turned him into a contender from the get-go: you don’t pull off a near-points finishing drive on a track and car you’ve never driven after just an hour of practice.

His five races replacing Daniel Ricciardo only delayed the inevitable in 2024 when the Australian was swapped after the Singapore GP, with the final races of last season being viewed as an audition for Perez’s seat. It worked for Lawson, but now Red Bull has generated a problem that was entirely avoidable in the early stages of 2025.

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Why Red Bull didn’t promote Liam Lawson in 2024

Lawson was seen as a more capable replacement by Helmut Marko and Christian Horner than Tsunoda because of his mental ability.

Thrusting a driver in a team expecting race wins from round one is enough pressure for some, but to do it with Verstappen as your teammate takes a lot of resilience they felt Tsunoda simply didn’t exhibit after four years at Racing Bulls.

The reason they didn’t put him in the car midway through 2024 was to take away any pressure, but even now with a clean slate, the pressure is on for Lawson to magically pull out a result.

The reality is that Lawson is on a learning curve, and a steep one at that. The RB21 has proven a tricky car to get into the right setup window, and if Verstappen struggles his teammate is usually in no mans land.

• READ MORE: Who is Red Bull Racing F1 driver Liam Lawson? Everything you need to know

Liam Lawson needed more time in older-spec Red Bull before 2025 season

Lawson was not given the benefit of testing a 2022 or 2023 car under the Testing of Previous Cars programmes, which is outside of the cost cap, during the pre-season. This means he effectively went into Bahrain testing with limited knowledge of the platform the RB21 was built on, and it showed.

His race runs were far off Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc when he ran on the second day, which was dismissed at the time because Red Bull was being cagey about its performance. Now it’s clear to see they are on the back foot, and Lawson is struggling to help contribute to making things improve.

Contrast his performances to Antonelli in the opening rounds and there is a big performance gap. This is because Mercedes gave Antonelli an extensive testing programme, in which he racked up several kilometres in their 2023 car to help understand its setup window.

Given Mercedes have been switching car concepts for the last four seasons after a tortuous start to this regulation cycle, it’s remarkable that Antonelli has grasped so much in such a short space of time.

Lawson’s final radio message at the end of the Chinese GP showed that he also has good setup knowledge, but experience with a car was the commodity in a race that had high tyre attrition.

Williams driver Carlos Sainz is a good example of someone with limited knowledge of his car and finishing low down the order, while Alex Albon netted a top-six finish and became the first Williams driver to lead a race since Felipe Massa in the 2015 British Grand Prix.

Things will not suddenly improve at Japanese GP for Liam Lawson

Horner can say how much Red Bull has become a one-man show under Verstappen in the first two races of 2025, but the fact is the team has backed themselves into this corner.

They might be banking on Lawson’s prior knowledge of Suzuka, having raced it in Super Formula. But those a spec-series cars and although they are close to the performance of F1, they are very different setup-wise to the current generation of cars which are sensitive to ride heights.

Suzuka is a highly technical circuit and also very unforgiving. Red Bull exile Daniil Kvyat had a big off once in 2015 while trying to drag a result out of his failing campaign, while drivers rarely have minor crashes around the tight and highspeed track.

A decision will reportedly made in the days leading up to the Japanese GP on whether to make a swap with Lawson and Tsunoda, but what makes them think the latter will improve things?

Tsunoda has done all of his pre-season preparation in the Racing Bulls. He only ran the RB20 during the Abu Dhabi post-season test, in which he set the 18th quickest time. The optics of such a decision would also be one of chaos, something you would imagine the team is trying to avoid after last year’s legal saga involving Horner.

They need to give Lawson time to settle in to the team before drawing to too many conclusions, and that might mean sacrificing this years Constructors’ Championship in a car that might be capable of fighting for it.