No team in F1 drops drivers from its lineup as hastily as Red Bull does. Many over the years have faced the brunt of their top brass, who make these decisions without giving drivers as much time as others would do. Pierre Gasly, Nyck de Vries, Daniel Ricciardo, and now Liam Lawson know this all too well. So, the promise of Yuki Tsunoda being at Red Bull for the rest of 2025 is a bit hard to digest.
Tsunoda has officially replaced Lawson as Red Bull’s driver for 2025. The Kiwi driver has been demoted back to their sister team Racing Bulls after just two races. Naturally, it’s a move that has drawn criticism from many in the F1 community, including Max Verstappen.
Some have also begun fearing for Tsunoda’s future even before his first race for the Milton Keynes-based outfit. Chief advisor Helmut Marko, however, has claimed that Tsunoda will be given time to show his worth at least until the end of the season. “Yuki Tsunoda will finish the season,” Marko told Formel1.de.
Journalist Ian Parkes—like many—refuses to take that as a guarantee from Marko, given Red Bull’s history of chopping and changing its driver lineup at the slightest sign of struggle.
“Who knows for Red Bull,” Parkes said on the RacingNews365 podcast. “We know what those guys are like. They could make the change at a drop of the hat. They’ve done it with Liam.”
Max Yuki
Tsunoda becomes Verstappen’s sixth Red Bull team mate#F1 pic.twitter.com/83esKIm4cb
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 27, 2025
Lawson was admittedly underperforming. There’s no doubt about that. He had finished out of the points in both Grands Prix and the solitary sprint race he took part in this season. Pace-wise, he was often over a second slower than Verstappen—something Red Bull couldn’t afford to ignore.
That said, Red Bull had the luxury of picking a talented driver like Tsunoda. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the pipeline to fall back on. So, Marko’s full-season promise—which Parkes laughed off—could just be more of a compulsion than a genuine desire.
Future of the chaotic Red Bull driver pool
What happens next? What if Tsunoda starts underperforming and Lawson begins to put in blistering lap times in the Racing Bulls car? Will Red Bull once again turn towards the Kiwi driver?
Highly unlikely.
Red Bull doesn’t normally turn back to the drivers they have axed in the past. For instance, Gasly performed exceedingly well after being dropped by Red Bull in just half a season, even getting podiums and winning a race for Racing Bulls (then known as Toro Rosso). Still, for the most part, he was never a serious contender for the second seat.
Red Bull, as such, will be forced to enter the highly saturated driver market or promote Isack Hadjar, who is too inexperienced to drive the RB21—a beast that only Verstappen can seemingly control. The Austrian team will be hoping that Tsunoda performs from the get-go, so they can avoid this scenario.
