Red Bull Is Probably Going To Fire Liam Lawson After Just Two Races: Report

Twenty-three year old Red Bull number two driver Liam Lawson could be out of a job after just two Grands Prix in the big leagues as Max Verstappen's teammate. The young New Zealander was hired to replace the departing Sergio Perez after a season of poor results from the Mexican elder statesman, who was in turn hired to fill the slot after a revolving door of Red Bull junior drivers didn't pan out. Despite a few flashes of brilliance from Daniel Ricciardo, and two Constructors' Championships with Perez, perhaps Lawson's failure to deliver results in the second Red Bull will force the team to come to terms with its inability to build a car that suits anyone but Max Verstappen. Or the team will just keep struggling and putting more potential race winners on the F1 career chopping block. 

Liam Lawson delivered middling but reasonable results as a stand-in for the Red Bull junior team Racing Bulls, and believed he was ready for the call up. "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to win," exclaimed Lawson at the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix. At the season-opening Australian Grand Prix two weeks ago Lawson qualified 18th, started from the pit lane, and crashed out of the Grand Prix after 46 laps. Hoping for redemption at the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend, Lawson qualified dead last in both the Sprint and the GP, and scored zero points across the weekend. Meanwhile his teammate Max Verstappen managed to push the same car to Q3 in all three qualifying sessions so far this season and come home with two podium trophies and a fourth-place finish, collecting 36 points to Lawson's goose egg. 

Lawson's highest finishing position this year was Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix where he finished twelfth. That doesn't sound so bad, it's just outside the points, of course. But when you consider that his position was improved by Fernando Alonso's brake failure retirement, Yuki Tsunoda's late race front wing failure, and three cars disqualified, it doesn't look good. Lawson finished more than three seconds behind Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar in the allegedly slower car.

"I think Liam still has got potential. We're just not realizing that at the moment," said Red Bull boss Christian Horner. "I think the problem for him is he's had a couple of really tough weekends. He's got all the media on his back and the pressure naturally grows in this business. I feel very sorry for him. You can see it's very tough on him at the moment."

The obvious candidate for the seat is Racing Bulls lead driver Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver was passed over for the seat, despite performing better than any teammate Red Bull could throw at him. The next race on the schedule is Tsunoda's home Japanese Grand Prix, however, and putting him in an unknown car could be a PR nightmare for the team if Tsunoda also fails to grip the Red Bull reins in a similar fashion to Lawson. According to Lawson, the Racing Bulls car is much easier to drive than the Red Bull is at the moment. Verstappen likes his car set up with a very sharp front end and a loose rear, which is quick if you can handle it, but many drivers struggle to extract the most of it like Verstappen obviously can. 

According to Spanish racing media reports gathered by Motorsport.com, Lawson could be on the outs altogether, potentially benched as Red Bull's reserve driver. If Tsunoda does get the call up, that would leave an empty space in the Racing Bulls team which would need to be filled ahead of the round in Japan. Team boss Helmut Marko was spotted in the Alpine hospitality on Sunday to talk about potentially hiring 2024 Williams driver and Alpine reserve driver Franco Colapinto for the opening. This could be complicated, as the Argentine indicates he's been linked to replace equally underperforming rookie Jack Doohan in the Alpine. 

It will be interesting to see how much of the F1 grid changes, if any, for the Japanese Grand Prix in two weeks time.