HORNER’S DILEMMA: The Details Behind Liam Lawson’s Promotion to Red Bull

It is a well-known fact that Red Bull have one of the largest junior programmes in the FIA Formula categories. Stretching from the junior Formulas to even having a support team in Formula 1 itself, the Austrian team have built themselves a structure to ensure that there are always drivers to power their future years in the pinnacle of motorsport.

However, it is also a very well-known fact that the Red Bull Junior Programme has come with endless controversies and instability, arising from harsh driver changes to uncertainty in new drivers. Throughout the years and especially in the more recent ones, Red Bull have been faced with issues caused by poor decisions made by the top executives in the team regarding the Junior programme with the most prominent one being inexperienced or unprepared drivers costing the team in both damages and performances.

Recently, following the arguably expected exit from their previous driver Sergio Perez, Red Bull have opted to promote current Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson to replace the parting Mexican driver. Lawson joined Red Bull’s junior driver programme in 2019 and has been a member of the Austrian team’s family ever since, debuting in Formula 1 in 2023 with Red Bull’s then second team Scuderia AlphaTauri to temporarily replace an injured Daniel Ricciardo. Since then, the 22-year-old has had 11 Formula 1 Grand Prix entries and six career points, scoring two in 2023 and four in 2024.

Lawson has a career-best finish of ninth place, finishing in the position three times. These three times have been his only points finishes in his 11 races. Having scored four points in his six total races for the 2024 season after replacing Ricciardo for the second time, albeit this time permanently, following the Singapore Grand Prix. Comparing this to his teammate and former running mate for the Red Bull Racing seat Yuki Tsunoda who has been in the sport for over four years, there is a clear difference in experience between the two Red Bull juniors.

Tsunoda debuted in Formula 1 in 2021 with Scuderia AlphaTauri and has been in the same team ever since, although the team has now rebranded to the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 Team (RB). Before the announcement to promote Lawson, there were several speculations on who would be promoted to the senior team, with notable names such as Carlos Sainz and even Valtteri Bottas being thrown around the media.

However, the most popular choice aside from Lawson seemed to be Tsunoda, who many thought was to be the obvious choice as he had much more experience and arguably more skill. Following the announcement, Red Bull Racing CEO and Team Principal Christian Horner confirmed that the two candidates for the seat alongside the team’s lead driver Max Verstappen was between Lawson and Tsunoda. He commented that it was a “very, very, tight” choice between the two teammates but that they had chosen the New Zealander driver as he showed “a potentially higher ceiling” than Tsunoda.

Due to Lawson’s low amount of entries in the sport and the fact that he has not completed a full season yet, it is difficult to compare the two drivers as it would be unequal to compare the results and points of the Japanese driver who has completed four full seasons in the sport. However, Red Bull evidently see a great amount of potential in Lawson, which makes a statement as they have watched Tsunoda race under their name for the past four years but clearly do not see enough in him to partner Verstappen for the 2025 season.

Being the teammate to Max Verstappen has been evident to be one of the most stressful seats in the Formula 1 grid, where drivers are under high scrutiny and even higher pressure to perform. Matching the results of Verstappen is no easy feat; the 4-time World Champion is a generational talent who is already seen as one of the greats in the sport’s history at just 27 years old.

A driver in Formula 1 is always compared to the results of his/her rivals, but more importantly, they are compared to their teammates. The driver they collaborate and drive alongside will always be the one they are most commonly compared against due to the fact that the team has the analytics and data to most critically examine both drivers. Thus, when the teammate happens to be a one-in-a-million talent such as Verstappen, it makes it just that much harder to perform under the immense pressure that already exists in the world of Formula 1.

Making it worse, the Red Bull team are known for being the strictest and harshest team when it comes to replacing drivers, with previous junior drivers such as Daniil Kvyat, Pierre Gasly, and Alexander Albon being clear evidence of this. All three of these drivers, once part of the Red Bull junior driver programme, have all been promoted to the senior team and then kicked out shortly after. Gasly and Albon were both teammates to Verstappen at their time in the team, and it is their performance compared to him which the top executives at the team did not see as enough to continue their journey with them in the team.

Bringing it back to Lawson, he will be the most inexperienced driver (aside from Christian Klein and David Coulthard who both debuted on the team’s entry) to compete for the senior team.

Lawson himself has commented that he will be expecting to play second fiddle to Verstappen, stating that “for anybody to go up against Max, [they] have to be realistic and know that he’s the fastest guy on the grid right now, and that [they’re] not gonna be out-qualifying the guy by half a second.” He further spoke out on how he will be learning from the Dutchman instead, stating “When you see all the data that [Verstappen] brings in, for me as a driver to be alongside that, to be able to learn from him and have all that access, I think that’s what’s exciting for me about the opportunity.”

Many have speculated that the reason Lawson was chosen over more experienced proven race winners such as Carlos Sainz was because he had the mindset that Red Bull wanted: to explicitly know that challenging Verstappen was out of the question and that the seat being offered was a clear second driver seat to the Dutchman, which is ironic as the reason past drivers were fired was because they couldn’t match the level of Verstappen.

Further, although never explicitly confirmed by Red Bull themselves, there have been several rumours that the reason Lawson was chosen over Tsunoda was because of the dwindling Honda partnership with Red Bull. Tsunoda has had the Japanese auto giant supporting him since he joined the sport in 2021, scoring points with Red Bull’s management team as they are the current engine suppliers for the team and have been since 2019. However, with the news that Honda would be parting ways with Red Bull to join forces with Aston Martin starting 2026, it would appear that Tsunoda has lost his upper hand in the corporate battle for the senior seat.

In recent news, however; it appears that Tsunoda’s future with the Red Bull family could come to an end for good, with Christian Horner admitting that “if we're not able to provide an opportunity for Yuki, in all honesty, this year, does it make sense, you can't have a driver in the support team for five years,"

It seems now that Tsunoda’s final chance at the Red Bull seat would be if Lawson is let go mid-season due to poor performances and Tsunoda is called in as his replacement, which could always be a possibility at such a high-pressure team such as Red Bull. However, it may be a time for Tsunoda to start looking elsewhere, possibly even towards joining Honda at Aston Martin for the 2026 season or beyond.