Why Dropping Liam Lawson After 2 Races Makes NO SENSE

Liam Lawson has kicked off the 2025 F1 season with back-to-back clangers, two races down with very little positive to write home about, and the rumour mill is already churning. Now, he was always going to be under big pressure jumping into this Red Bull C, especially if he didn't hit the ground running. But when you've already got motorsport.com reporting that Red Bull may swap Lawson and Tsunoda for the next F1 race, what? Are Red Bull really considering dropping the Kiwi after just two races? Here's a multitude of reasons why I think that is a ridiculous idea, and just the one, maybe, that actually kind of might work. My name's Tomo, let's talk about it. I've got a lot to say on this topic because this has been a continuing theme in Formula 1 since the start of 2019, really, hasn't it? This has been rumbling on for a while. When Pierre Gasly first jumped into that Red Bull and came nowhere near the level set by his predecessor, Daniel Ricciardo, then my favourite driver, Alex Albon, replaced Pierre Gasly, which triggered the very first video on this YouTube channel. So it's finally happened, Red Bull have replaced Pierre Gasly with Alex Albon. Yet here we are still talking about the number two to max struggling in that Red Bull five and a half years later. In fact, I'll let a worse lit, unkempt, skinnier version of me fill in occasionally, because he had some words of wisdom, even all the way back then. Look, in short, these rumours of pulling Liam for Japan is ridiculous for one primary reason. Okay, two Grand Prix is nowhere near enough to fully evaluate Lawson as to whether he is the right guy for that seat, especially given these two weekends have been at tracks that Liam's never raced at before. Australia, he didn't get any FP3 running because the car broke, and Sunday was chaos weather-wise, and China was a sprint weekend, which means minimal practice running. That is nowhere near a reasonable sample size for Red Bull to unequivocally be absolutely sure that Liam isn't the right guy for that seat. And the same would go for any other driver in any other team, by the way. Two weekends is not enough. And the thing is, if Red Bull really do quick him out for Japan, they can't go back on that. That is a permanent decision with permanent consequences. There's no way Red Bull ever put Liam Lawson back in the senior team. If they pull him off the two Grand Prix, of course they don't. That's ridiculous. They never would. It's a permanent decision that they have to stick by. Liam now has 13 career races total, two in a Red Bull, two difficult, challenging, particularly challenging in Australia, and again a sprint in China. No, surely they're not going to do that. That's ridiculous. I mean, we all saw last season how the narrative to who would be Max's teammate for 2025 went between, there were kind of five primary candidates, right? Sergio Perez, who was currently in the seat, had been since 2021 and was showing zero indication of getting any better. Daniel Ricciardo, who was the last driver to be competent in that seat, but was not shining in the racing bulls. Yuki Tsunoda, who was in his fourth season at racing bulls, and over that time had gone from unconvincing and crash-happy to fast and consistent. Carlos Sainz, a proven race winner, who was dropped by Ferrari and looking for an opportunity elsewhere. And finally, Liam Lawson, who'd been overlooked in favour for originally, but was brought in to replace him for the final six races to evaluate him for 2025. Red Bull picked Liam, okay? You might not like it, you might not think he deserved it, but that's the decision they made. They saw enough in his racing bulls performances, in his sim work, in his testing of the Red Bull, and various other factors that we will never have knowledge of, and they picked Liam. They put him in the car at the end of season test in Abu Dhabi, they gave him testing in Bahrain, and they've given him two weekends at the start of 2025. They've made their bed, now they've got to lie in it. They need to give Liam the opportunity to come away from China, we've got a bit of a break now between Japan, a week off to go to his engineering team, to understand the problems, everything that happened, what went on, and give him the chance to bounce back. Around a track in Suzuka that he knows very well from both Super Formula and Formula One, he performed very favourably relative to Yuki in the race in 2023, it wasn't even 2024, which is crazy. And what does Lewis always say? It's not about how you fall, it's about how you get back up. I think Kvyat's a good example of how life isn't just a straight line, just straight going up. You're gonna have hits, you're gonna have downs, and the way Pierre bounces back from this, because again, he's clearly a very, very talented driver, but he's just human at the end of the day. We all have bad days at the office. He's proven in the Toro Rosso last season that he can perform, and he can get results, and he can overtake, and he's not just a clumsy, poor-performing, getting lapped by a team-mate driver. Adversity creates improvement. Look at the adversity that Alex and Pierre both went through, and how they've improved and grown their stock in Formula One since their time at Red Bull Racing. Alex has helped that Williams team recover. He's done a very, very favourable job relative to Carlos Sainz so far this season. He's really flourished. Red Bull let him go for Sergio, and look, I'm not saying that was the wrong decision, because at the time, that was the correct decision, absolutely, to sign Sergio because he was available, but then why last February were Red Bull offering Alex a first option on his Formula One future, which would have essentially given them the freedom to re-sign him from 26 onwards? They saw the driver Alex became away from their stable and decided, you know what, we want first dibs on re-signing him for 2026. Look, we'll never know how Alex would have performed in 21 at the Red Bull. We'll never know how Pierre would have performed in 2020 in the Red Bull, but what we do know is that they're not mugs, they're great drivers, and we saw Checo perform very, very favourably in Formula One for years prior to his time at Red Bull as well. Now, Yuki never got that shot at the top seat, and I completely accept, and I agree, that on paper, he's the one who deserved it more than anyone else, because he put the groundwork in. 21, 22, 23, 24 at Racing Bulls, the junior team improving significantly, I think. I think the raw pace was there from the start, but very crash-happy, blowing up on the radio, not great communication with his team. We've seen him, again, grow. It's not been a quick process, it's taken its time, but eventually he caught up to Pierre, eventually he established himself at that team, you know, was outperforming De Vries, outperforming Ricciardo as well when they came in, and there was an expectation from many, including myself, with Ricciardo, that Yuki would kind of get blown out of the water, and it didn't happen. Now you look in 2025, he's come out of the blocks flying, top 10 in qualifying for all three qualifying sessions we've had so far this year, and he would have been points in every single event if not for Racing Bulls' absolute clanging strategy choices. But look, he's driving a Racing Bulls, a car that has significantly improved relative to the field from where it was this time last year, well, not even this time last year, just the end of last year. We're seeing that from the performances Isaac is able to put in on debut as well. He's been very, very, very, very convincing. But also, Yuki's in his fifth season at that team, so he should be built in, he should be established, he should be maximising that car in the same way that Max is able to maximise the Red Bull. However, what feels like an undeniable fact right now is that that Torosso, AlphaTauri, Racing Bulls, whatever guys it is in, that car does not adequately prepare its drivers for the senior team, for the Red Bull Racing Car. Being quick in the junior team doesn't appear to have any correlation to being quick in the senior team. We saw that with Pierre, we saw that with Alex, and now we're seeing that with Liam. Liam was close to Yuki last year by all measurements, especially race pace-wise. Yuki had a gap to him in qualifying, but race pace-wise, it was very close. Yet now, Yuki is miles ahead of Liam, even though Liam's in the better car. Work that one out. The Red Bull is only better in the hands of Max, because it's an absolute bastard to drive, and Max has been there since 2016, remember. He's been there for almost 10 years at Red Bull, with this style, this team, understanding what he needs from a car, he understands vice versa, like it just works from that side of the garage. That highly sensitive approach that's needed to maximise that Red Bull Racing Car is something unique to Max, and don't just take my word for it, Max has said this himself. Interviewed with De Telegraaf over the weekend, he said this, if you look at the difference between the two drivers at the other team, Yuki and Isaac, they are all closer together. It also shows that our car is extremely tough. I think if you put Liam in the Racing Bulls car, he will go faster. I really think so. That car is easier to drive than ours. I also noticed that when I talked to Liam. Last year, I didn't think the difference between him and Yuki was that big, otherwise the team wouldn't have made the choice to put him in at Red Bull either. Look, I'm a long-term supporter of Yuki Tsunoda, right? If you were here watching my stuff in 2021, you'll remember how often I was in the trenches defending this rough diamond after his 41st crash of the weekend. The raw potential was always there, and he's finally coming to realise that. I do feel a little bit of pride seeing him grow from where he was then to him absolutely cooking right now. I've got a lot of love for Yuki, but I'm also very afraid for him. I think some of you Yuki fans out there feel the same. Even with all this, I still think if you swap them out and put Yuki in that Red Bull car right now, I do believe he's struggling in a very similar way to Liam. I do. We don't know until we see. Of course we don't. But if Pierre, Alex, Checo, and Liam couldn't adjust, all drivers who to various degrees have proven their talent in Formula 1, why would Yuki be any different? Like, Yuki's great, but they're also great. I really, really hope I'm wrong. I really hope if Yuki gets the chance, he grabs it with both hands, absolutely nails it, and firmly is like, right, I'm the guy for the future of Red Bull racing, but would I put money on it? Absolutely not. Putting Yuki in now with no pre-season testing, a whole new engineering team with very little experience himself in that real Red Bull car, a car that by the way is now probably the fourth quickest on the grid, and it's only Max being the best driver in F1, extracting the ceiling of that car that's making it look anywhere near respectable. To me, all signs point to Yuki having a bad time, and also point to Liam going back to racing bulls, and driving that racing bulls car at a level very similar to what Isaac and Yuki are doing right now. That's just what I think will happen. The pressure on Liam right now does feel excruciating. Social media is going in on him right now, and I do feel for the kid. Look, I've been very lucky with this career that you ultimately have given to me, and I'll be eternally grateful for that, that I've been able to go to Grand Prix, and I've been able to meet drivers and do content. Liam, most recent, last month, went down to Red Bull Racing headquarters, got the video for my channel, got some bits for Red Bull on their socials as well. I spent like an hour, hour and a half probably in total, so it's not a huge sample set to make a judge on someone's character, but the impression I got is just that he's a very down-to-earth, normal, easy-to-talk-to bloke. Does that make me more empathetic towards Liam than I would be about a driver that I haven't met? Yeah, it probably does, but that context isn't important when you just look at the extremity of stick that he's been getting online. It's honestly grim. Did he give one of them to Checo? Yes. Did he get his elbows out with Fernando? Yes. Has he dropped a few cocky one-liners in interviews? Sure. He walks that line between confidence and arrogance, a trait that most greats do, by the way, and it has made him a lot of enemies in the fan base. I think they were some missteps. They are some mistakes. He will have some regrets about how he carried himself, but the anonymity of social media really does strip the self-respect from some people, man, because these are human beings at the end of the day, putting themselves in a pretty dangerous situation, high-octane sport, going 200 miles an hour, ultimately for our entertainment, right? Next time your favourite driver's on the receiving end of a bit of stick from another driver, let's just remember that it's never that deep. It's never that deep. It's sport. Calm down. Many people actively want Liam to fail, and part of me does want him to succeed because of that, because I think he's been so disproportionately dragged at the moment, but look, if things continue to be this dire, because it has been a horrific start to the season for him by every measure, of course there has to come to a point where they will swap him out, okay? And I would accept that, and I would be fine with that. After two races, absolutely not. I would say 12 races, half of the season, is the minimum amount of time that Red Bull should give him to get enough data to be confident as to whether, right, if we're going to drop him, we know this is definitely not the guy for us going forward. There's a full three weeks between round 12 at Silverstone and round 13 at Spa, which would be a good place, if things don't improve, to drop Yuki and give him a bit of time to get to know Woody, to get to know the broader engineering team, to get on the sim, and to get up to speed before Belgium. And I say Yuki because, of course, it has to be Yuki, okay? Yes, Isaac has been fantastic. Yes, Arvid Lindblad is very promising and has his super license, but throwing juniors at this Red Bull team has not been working as a strategy, okay? It needs to be Yuki in this seat, if it's not Liam, because there is one difference with Sonoda that separates him from Gasly, from Albon, from Lawson. And do I think this will actually make the difference enough for him to be like, yeah, I'm going to smash it in Red Bull? Probably not, but maybe. Yuki Sonoda is the only driver to have amassed multiple years of experience at the junior team before getting a shot at the senior team, right? Pierre only had a year and a couple of races at the end of 2017, Alex had like six months, and Liam has had 11 races at the junior team, spread over two seasons. Maybe, just maybe, that experience at Racing Bulls will pay dividends for Yuki if he gets the opportunity and allow him to take to that Red Bull like a duck to water. If he gets his shot, I really, really, really, really, really, really, hope that's the case. Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments down below. Thank you so much for watching. Drop a like as well if you enjoyed it. My name's Tom, thanks again. Have a good one. Ta-ra.