Liam Lawson: Director of the Red Bull Christian Horner team responds to speculation that the driver could be set after two races

Christian Horner intensified the speculation that Liam Lawson could lose his seat of Red Bull after only two races, refusing to confirm that the New Zealander would drive for the Third round of the Formula 1 2025 season in Japan.

Lawson endured the nasty start of his Red Bull career, knocked out in the first phase of all three qualifying sessions (including one in Sprint format), and also showed a lack of racing tempo, prominent in the relative success of his teammate Max Verstappen.

Red Bull decided to promote Lawson from his junior racing bulls after only 11 appearances of Grand Prix in two short spells in the 2023 and 2024, which favored the 23-year-old because of the more experienced former teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

Autosport reported shortly after Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix that Red Bull is considering replacing Lawson with Tsunoda as soon as the Japanese driver’s race in the house, which takes place from April 4 to 6 in Suzuki.

Asked about this in his own briefing for journalists for a few hours after the race in China, the director of the Red Bull team Horner, he especially decided not to reject the report as false.

Horner said, “There will always be speculation in the rowing. As I say, we just finished the race here. We’ll take information and look at it.”

Asked about the statements of Advisor Red Bull Helmut Mark that a meeting was scheduled for next week to talk about the situation, Horner said that “nothing specific” was set up.

After Lawson’s poor qualifying display on Saturday, in which he struggled to enter the tires into their operating window, Red Bull changed his car setting, breaking the Parc Ferma rules and condemning him to the beginning of the pit.

Horner said: “I think Liam had a hard couple of races, a busy weekend here. We chose him to take him off the Parc Ferme network to make a significant change in setting up, so we managed to get 56 circles of reasonable information. Obviously we will take it away, we will do it well, and, as a group, to do it.

“Liam obviously is fighting a car at the moment, which is why we have made some significant changes today to see if we can find more setting up for him more confidence.”

‘Sorry Lawson’

While Horner was careful to avoid giving any final statements during the briefing, some of his remarks about Lawson’s struggles pointed to great concern in the team.

Horner said, “I think Liam still has the potential, we just don’t understand that at this point. I think the problem is for him, he had a few really difficult weekends, he has all the media on his back.

“Pressure only naturally grows in this business and I’m very sorry about him. You see that it is very difficult on it right now.

“He is a young man, we have a duty to watch him and we will do the best we can support him.

“Liam is still a very capable driver. We know that, for any reason, we don’t see him at the moment.”

The introductory two races of the season arrived in the circles Lawson did not compete before, but Horner seems to have rejected it as an excuse for his struggles.

He said, “I think these guys, they are quickly accelerating. We’ll just continue to evaluate it. We have a bunch of data to leave and look. We’ll do that.”

Tsunoda ok for a belated call?

Tsunoda publicly expressed frustration due to overlooking the promotion, but let her ride in an early stage of the season.

While some extreme accident saw him miss points in each of the first two Grands Prix, he qualified well and achieved an impressive six -ranked ending in the Shanghai Sprint on Saturday.

Asked about Tsunoda’s beginning of the season, Horner said: “Yuki is an experienced driver now doing a great job. He is unhappy, from what I can see from race parcels, with a strategy and today. But again, last weekend he did a good job.”

Tsunoda had the opportunity to drive Verstappen’s 2024 driver’s title, winning the RB20 on the test at the end of the season in Abu Dhabi last year, but it was widely reported that Red Bull was already everything, but decided to replace Sergio Perez’s departure with Lawson.

Horner asked if the tsunoda performance in this test would be more useful than the formation of his racing bulls in understanding whether he would better deal with the Red Bull than Lawson did so so far.

He said, “You look at the information, you look at the information, and in the end there are 400 engineers in our team that all go through 600 sensors in the car, so there is a lot of information we have.

“Yuki made a test for us, he tested very well. It’s a useful set of data, but that’s all he is. You must always look at a wider picture.”

Formula 1 is referred to the iconic circle of Suzuk for Japanese Grand Prix from 4-6. April, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with now – No Treaty, cancel anytime