RB21 is a bad car F1s cruel side is on show as Red Bull to fire Liam Lawson after 2 races Red Bull will promote Yuki Tsunoda after Liam Lawson's two bad races. Jonathan M. Gitlin Mar 26, 2025 11:27 am | 23 Liam Lawson on track in Shanghai, China. It might have been his last outing with the team. Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images Liam Lawson on track in Shanghai, China. It might have been his last outing with the team. Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreBeing Red Bull Racing 1 teammates with Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen is a hard ask. The Dutch driver took his fourth consecutive world championship last year, dominating the sport to such an extent that he led the points table across a 63-race, 1,029-day streak that only ended with McLaren and Lando Norris' victory in Australia earlier this month. Now we believe he's going to have his second teammate of the year, after just two races, as Red Bull gets ready to drop Liam Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda.For three of its championship years, Red Bull built the fastest car in F1, and Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez scored race wins and plenty of points to help the team secure the constructors championships in 2021, 2022, and 2023. But Red Bulls' designers have been evolving a concept that even its former design boss Adrian Newey thinks is flawed, and in 2024, we saw Perez' form evaporate after the first handful of races that year.Verstappen was able to fight for the title thanks to his considerable skill in the car. But the team lost out to both McLaren and Ferrari in the constructors' standings, something that will have had a very considerable impact upon the end-of-year bonuses for Red Bull's hundreds of employees. Lawson's race in Australia ended in the wall. Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images Red Bull spent the second half of last year vacillating over whether to allow Perez to finish out the year. At one point, it hoped the fan-favorite Daniel Ricciardo could return after a spell of reputation rehabilitation at Red Bull's junior squad (currently known as the Racing Bulls). Ricciardo was with Red Bull from 2014 to 2017 and for some of that time was probably the fastest man in F1.That was before a mediocre time at Alpine and a disastrous stint at McLaren, and while Drive to Survive's producers would no doubt have loved the redemption story of Ricciardo returning to Red Bull, it wasn't to be, as the speed just wasn't there.The entire point of having the junior Racing Bull team is so Red Bull's driver program has another pair of race seats to allow its young drivers to get experience. But in practice, it hasn't really been much of a success.Neither Max Verstappen nor Sebastian Vettel (the team's previous four-time champion) were properly part of the young driver program, nor was Perez. And the racers who were promoted to the Red Bull seatDanny Kvyat, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albonall fell short of Red Bull's expectations and were replaced. Yuki Tsunoda (L) and Liam Lawson (R) were teammates at the end of last year. Credit: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images There may have been doubts about Tsunoda's speed when he first joined the Racing Bull team (then called Alpha Tauri) back in 2021, but five years on, the Japanese driver has silenced those doubts. Promoting Tsunoda to the main squad seemed an obvious fix to the Perez problem, but Red Bull bosses Christian Horner and Helmut Marko evidently believed otherwise. Instead, for 2025, they went with Lawson, lifting him up from a reserve role that led to 11 races over a couple of years.And that has been a disaster. This year's Red Bull is very much not the fastest car in the fieldthat's the McLaren, for now. Depending on the day, the Red Bull might only be the fourth fastest car, behind Ferrari and Mercedes, too, at least while Verstappen is driving it. In years past, a heavy revision to the car might have solved things. But with F1's budget cap, a team like Red Bull can no longer spend its way out of the problem.As was clear in Australia and then China this past weekend, Lawson has no confidence in his race car, and believing that your car will do the same thing in the same corner each lap is critically important to being fast in Formula 1 (or any other motorsport, really). Instead of qualifying in the top 10, he lined up 18th in Australia and dead last for both the sprint and main race in China. Christian Horner (L) and Helmut Marko (R): Should the buck not stop with these two? They are in charge of the team and the drivers. Credit: QIan Jun/Paddocker/NurPhoto via Getty Images F1's media loves a good rumor about a hiring or a firing as much as it loves a good race, and in China, there was plenty of talk of Lawson being dropped soon, prompting Verstappen to criticize the idea, fearing Red Bull might ruin yet another promising career. In fact, the name Franco Colapinto kept being thrown around; Colaptino is currently the Alpine reserve driver who impressed Marko with some substitute appearances for a different team late last year.Maybe Marko's meetings with Alpine in the Shanghai paddock were a bluff, as the BBC says team insiders have told it that the decision has been made to go with Tsunoda ahead of his home Grand Prix. Lawson will be sent to the Racing Bulls, where, ironically, he will find a car that's much less tricky to drive, operated by a team that's far more nurturing and much less ruthless with its talent.I still can't help but wonder whether Verstappen in the Racing Bull would actually be the move. That car might lack the last tenth of the Red Bullalthough until we see Verstappen wring its neck, who can really saybut I reckon Verstappen would be faster over a race distance, as he wouldn't have to try to overdrive the car. And it remains a shame that Lawson will take the fall for what is clearly a problem at Red Bull, for which both Horner and Marko bear responsibility.Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 23 Comments