Red Bull Put Yuki Tsunoda on Halt Following Liam Lawson’s Stunning Performance

Yuki Tsunoda has been a great addition to Scuderia AlphaTauri ever since the Japanese joined the team back in 2021. Despite being the star performer of the team so far, his contract extension was initially put on hold due to newcomer Liam Lawson’s stunning performances, as per F1’s Lawrence Barretto.

Coming into the 2023 season, Tsunoda has been the lead driver for the team as the Red Bull sister team began their season with him and Nyck de Vries. However, after de Vries was replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, there was no dip in performance for the Japanese.

While Tsunoda kept on delivering worthy performances, extending his contract [his contract expires at the end of this season] became a cause of concern for the Red Bull fraternity. Since Ricciardo had already occupied one seat, it was all about the other seat, with both Tsunoda and Lawson in contention.

Honda arrived at the scene to save Yuki Tsunoda

As the Red Bull fraternity was still to give a green signal to Tsunoda due to Lawson’s impressive performances, Honda arrived at the scene to support their country’s only star in Formula 1 despite questions asked.

Honda, which supplies engine components to Red Bull and has been a loyal partner for a couple of years, always has importance when it comes to such decisions. Therefore, they managed to persuade the Austrian team to re-sign the young Japanese for the future.

As things stand, AlphaTauri has extended both Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda’s contract in the team for the upcoming seasons. This has come amid a fine show by a driver who has been a problem child earlier.

How did Lawson perform against Tsunoda?

The entry of Liam Lawson has been one of the most fascinating stories for an F1 driver. Not even in his wildest dreams he thought of having the AlphaTauri seat while Tsunoda and de Vries began the season and Ricciardo waiting in the wings.

Nevertheless, the New Zealander impressed his top bosses with his fantastic show. Despite having one of the slowest cars on the grid, the young driver picked up two points in just three races.

Compared to him, the Japanese driver has three points in 15 races and saw Lawson become his third teammate this season. All in all, Red Bull indeed had a tough choice to make between Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo, and Liam Lawson.