It was widely expected that Liam Lawson would take the RB seat if they dropped Daniel Ricciardo for 2025. However, the mid-season swap ahead of the US GP has been a surprise. While Ricciardo is out of the Red Bull equation, Lawson’s early promotion could also be an alarming sign for Sergio Perez, who hasn’t been in the best of form in 2024.
F1 expert Scott Mitchell-Malm mentioned in The Race’s YouTube video that Red Bull aims to test Lawson’s caliber for a 2025 Red Bull seat. While Perez has a contract for next season and beyond, Mitchell-Malm feels there is no additional reason to bring Lawson at RB as a backup to the Mexican driver.
Jumping behind the wheel for the remainder of the 2024 Formula One Season @LiamLawson30 will be pairing up with @YukiTsunoda07 as we fight for points in the last six races.#F1 #VCARB
— Visa Cash App RB F1 Team (@visacashapprb) September 26, 2024
The F1 journalist explained how Red Bull wants to “see how he [Lawson] deals with pressure, see how he does deal with difficult situations, six races to come in and make his mark, see how Perez performs as well.”
“I think Perez is vulnerable even though he is now basically secure for the rest of this year. It’s really whether Lawson has a bigger opportunity here”, he added.
A year ago, Lawson stepped into the AlphaTauri (now RB) car to replace Ricciardo for five races. The Kiwi driver performed exceptionally well and even beat Yuki Tsunoda by scoring points as well in Singapore. However, Red Bull denied him a full-time seat at RB for 2024, and thus, Lawson had to settle for being their reserve again.
Nevertheless, the 22-year-old has a golden chance to secure his full-time F1 seat for 2025 in the upcoming six races. He would mainly be focusing on securing the RB seat. However, if Red Bull feels that the Kiwi is ready to take the challenge amid Perez’s underperformance, they may take the bold call of promoting their Academy prodigy to the senior team.
Lawson getting a Red Bull seat could upset Tsunoda
Lawson’s promotion to the Milton Keynes outfit may not sit well with Tsunoda. The Japanese driver has already stated so while discussing the driver lineup dilemma of both Red Bull teams. Tsunoda had claimed that it would be “weird” to see Lawson getting a chance at the senior team ahead of himself.
The 24-year-old driver has improved massively in the past two seasons. Despite the Faenza-based outfit not providing him with a good enough car, Tsunoda has shown his skills on the track to eke out points consistently. In 2024, he beat Ricciardo at several race weekends as the Aussie went through a bad run of form.
Even Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has praised Tsunoda’s performance. All in all, the Japanese driver seems to be ticking all the boxes for getting a promotion to the senior team. However, there have been reports that he is only in the Red Bull stable due to his Honda connection, which ends after 2025.
So, after Honda’s exit, Tsunoda could be left to fight for his RB seat as well, let alone get a promotion to Red Bull. On the other hand, the Austrian team has viewed Lawson as a long-term candidate for their driver lineup.
