After another difficult weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix, what does Red Bull do about addressing Liam Lawson’s struggles in the second RB21?

Lawson was knocked out in Q1 for a second consecutive weekend, and finished in 15th place after a sub-optimal two-stop strategy in a race where he didn’t make much forward progress.

Is Liam Lawson seriously about to be replaced?

After two races, it’s not yet clear what path Red Bull is going to take. What is clear is that Lawson’s performances have not been what the team expected from him, and nor is it tenable to have him toiling around near the back as the team hopes to return to Constructors’ Championship glory.

The possibility of a replacement isn’t being shot down by Red Bull, with Christian Horner conspicuously failing to rule out the idea when he spoke to the media after the Chinese Grand Prix. Ensuring that the team is well-armoured in terms of drivers is a key imperative, but so is ensuring that another junior talent is burned out and destroyed by the pressure before their career has had a chance to flourish.

Lawson is in danger of spiraling under the deluge of negative headlines and the weight of expectation, but his first two weekends – at tracks he didn’t know – are now behind him. Would it be premature to replace him before he has a chance at a track he knows well in what is his rookie season, or is the writing on the wall already that Lawson doesn’t have what it takes to thrive at Red Bull?

After all, his fellow rookies are faring well against their teammates – the more inexperienced Kimi Antonelli has taken to life at Mercedes like a duck to water, while Gabriel Bortoleto, Isack Hadjar, and even the beleaguered Jack Doohan have all been comparable to their more experienced teammates.

What’s certain at this point is that there is uncertainty over who will be alongside Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull in Japan, and that a decision isn’t expected to be taken in the days immediately following the Chinese Grand Prix – Lawson’s opportunity hasn’t come to an end just yet, despite some speculation elsewhere that a decision has already been taken.

With every possibility being evaluated, let’s look through the most likely candidates for the RB21 when F1 returns in Japan.

Liam Lawson

Given the fact Lawson didn’t know either of the first two tracks of this year and was hampered further by circumstances such as the Sprint event, perhaps the safest course of action at this point would be to allow Lawson the benefit of the doubt and give him a chance to shine at a track he knows well.

Finishing second at the Japanese venue in the Super Formula season finale in 2023, it’s a track he has success at – combined with having three practice sessions to prepare, a straightforward weekend would give the Kiwi driver the best chance of putting his best foot forward.

One of the fillips in Lawson’s favour in choosing him over Tsunoda was that it was felt he has the right mentality to succeed alongside Verstappen. Given the nightmarish, worst-case scenario that his Red Bull career has started with, that resilience is being tested to its zenith.

If Red Bull really does have confidence and faith in that theory, allowing Lawson the chance to show that resilience could set things back on the right path very quickly – being able to bounce back in the fact of such crushing pressure would show Lawson has the mettle and ability to brush off adversity.

For the sake of another weekend or two, getting further clarity on Lawson – and all that he represents in the bigger picture of evaluating the future for Red Bull – is surely more important, given the potential upsides of Lawson starting to right the ship.

But it’s equally possible that Red Bull has already realised it’s asked for too much, too soon, from a driver who had only completed half a season’s worth of races over the course of two years – not every driver can be Max Verstappen, who himself spent a season and a bit in the lower-pressure environment of Toro Rosso.

With Christian Horner explaining that Lawson’s youth and inexperience mean the team has “got a duty to look after him”, that support could mean the sensible choice is dropping Lawson back to Racing Bulls and out of this blazing fire in order to allow him to find his feet in Formula 1 without the incredible weight of expectation of being Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull.

Yuki Tsunoda

If Red Bull does plump for a change, the most likely candidate is surely Yuki Tsunoda.

Part of Red Bull’s stable of F1 drivers since 2021, Tsunoda came through a very difficult start to his career. Petulant and angry over team radio and public admissions of being lazy and preferring gaming to training led then-AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost to realise Tsunoda had been given too much free rein and moved him to Faenza to keep a closer eye on him.

It’s to Tsunoda’s credit that he’s largely turned things around since then. Two years of learning alongside Pierre Gasly saw him step up to the plate as team leader when the French driver departed for pastures new, and Tsunoda has clearly become a very solid pair of hands as a racing driver.

Is he perfect? Perhaps not, given that Red Bull still weren’t convinced enough by his mentality at the end of last season, but, given the disappointments and frustrations Tsunoda has coped with over the last year by having a possible promotion constantly but frustratingly out of reach, he has shown some of that same mental resilience Red Bull hopes its drivers to have.

Tsunoda has been matter-of-fact about the situation he’s found himself in and, while his hot-headedness may come out on team radio occasionally (to a much milder degree than in his younger days), he hasn’t lashed out in frustration or temper. He’s kept plugging away at the Red Bull sister team, scoring points and defeating his raft of teammates while smiling through the pain of seeing those teammates become the preferred choice for a promotion.

There’s little to lose for anyone at this point, including Tsunoda. Given the upcoming split of Honda and Red Bull, as well as the looming presence of a potential new superstar in junior driver Arvin Lindblad, Tsunoda needs to find some upward mobility. With no obvious way into Aston Martin, Honda’s future destination, another season scoring diligent results in the midfield is all well and good, but would it be enough to find a home elsewhere at this point?

Having driven the RB20 in Abu Dhabi, and coming away from the experience seemingly quite pleased with the car’s handling, Tsunoda appears the most ‘plug-and-play’ option for Red Bull to pop in beside Verstappen.

If he thrives, Red Bull finally has an answer to its second-driver problem. If he fails, it can hardly be said to have been a premature promotion – there’s a clear path forward to split, having given him the chance to impress in the senior team, and clears some backlog to move Lindblad up. Assuming the next Red Bull driver is also an internal promotion.

Isack Hadjar

While the praise of Isack Hadjar was notable over the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, with the French driver bouncing back from his heartbreak in Australia, the same stumbling blocks apply to Hadjar as what Lawson is encountering.

If Lawson’s inexperience is the biggest obstacle to his current issues being resolved, then Hadjar’s experience pales into insignificance compared to that. Two race weekends, one of which he crashed out of on the formation lap, is not a big data set, regardless of how impressive Hadjar may have been in China.

If it’s too much, too soon, for Lawson, it’s the same deal for Hadjar.

Franco Colapinto

Linked with the Red Bull seat during his impressive outings upon arrival into F1, Colapinto has fewer starts than Lawson and represents the same level of risk as Lawson – he does not represent a clear and solid level of dependability that offers Red Bull a baseline level of expectation.

Added to that is the fact that Colapinto is not an internal hire and is on a long-term contract with Alpine, meaning all sorts of negotiations and arrangements would need to be made. Negotiations that PlanetF1.com understands have not commenced and, even if an approach was made, is highly unlikely to be thrashed out.

After all, this would be an arrangement that would involve Horner and Alpine’s Flavio Briatore – a man who very much knows the value of a talented young driver on his books. An arrangement in which Red Bull would somehow have to convince Alpine to completely relinquish their claim on the Argentinean’s availability any time soon, while the same team has yet to deny the possibility that Jack Doohan is on borrowed time.

Given the wrangling that would be involved to get him, the very public messaging it would send out that Red Bull’s own development programme isn’t up to standard, and the same relative amount of risk he would founder – as he did as the pressure ramped up towards the end of last season – it’s not a suggestion that makes much sense.

Daniel Ricciardo

A year ago, Ricciardo seemed like the obvious solution to Red Bull’s issues as Perez struggled. But, having made the tough call to part ways and drop Ricciardo, the messaging since then has been that Ricciardo’s prime was behind him.

Added to that is the fact Ricciardo appears to have mentally moved on from Formula 1, and this is a door that seems firmly shut.

Valtteri Bottas

On paper, the Finn ticks a lot of boxes. Now something of a marketing dream as he’s grown into his quirky and warm personality, Bottas is a very proven number two driver at a leading F1 team – consistent and fast.

With Bottas not yet calling time on his F1 career after losing his Sauber seat, he’s returned home to Mercedes as a reserve driver and, if an agreement could be reached, would likely be an ideal short-term solution for Red Bull. Unlikely to trouble Verstappen on a regular basis, but more than capable of keeping up just behind.

After three years of toiling around in tricky Saubers, the RB21 might not even remotely faze him.

But, like with Colapinto, bringing Bottas into the picture would be a signal that the Red Bull driver development programme isn’t producing the goods.

Added to that, it would require Red Bull to approach Mercedes, two teams that don’t always see eye-to-eye, and negotiate an arrangement – a sequence of events that Red Bull would probably not like to give Mercedes the satisfaction of.

Zhou Guanyu

As another driver seeking a return to the F1 grid, Zhou proved similarly solid and dependable alongside Bottas at Sauber.

He also would open the doors to the vast Asian market of sponsors, if Red Bull wished to tap into that area to replace the South American market that Sergio Perez commanded.

Closer to the start of his career than most, given he’s just 25 years old, Zhou is also likely to be easier to pry away from Ferrari – a path into the F1 team isn’t likely any time soon, and he doesn’t appear ready to give up on the F1 dream.

The relationship between Red Bull and Ferrari is also less terse than what Red Bull has with Mercedes, meaning it may be easier for Red Bull to swallow their pride in making enquiries. However, at this point, those enquiries don’t appear to have been made.

Nor would Zhou likely cost heaven and earth to secure – while solid, he didn’t set the world alight while at Sauber.

However, once again, hiring Zhou would underline the messaging that the Red Bull programme isn’t yielding results. He also doesn’t represent a clear path forward in terms of succession if Verstappen shocked the F1 world by taking a sabbatical, retiring, or seeking a new challenge elsewhere – it’s hard to imagine Red Bull being led forward by Zhou, while its own homegrown talents founder upon getting into the senior team’s car.

Sergio Perez

Yes, it sounds ridiculous. But Perez hasn’t given up on F1 and still has ties to Red Bull as he’s taken up the option of representing the team at showruns throughout this season.

It’s a relationship that hasn’t been completely burned down, and Perez is slowly but surely being vindicated in that the Red Bull cars appear exceptionally tricky to drive – and he has experience driving them.

After all, up until the first quarter of last year, Perez was good enough to merit a two-year extension to his contract – it was only when the RB20, with its very small operating window, fell off the boil that Perez fell to pieces.

The RB21 appears to be a more compliant machine with a wider operating window and could be exactly what Perez spent most of last year looking for.

Unlikely? Absolutely. Very unlikely? Indubitably! But stranger things have happened…

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