Well, that didn’t last long. 2 1/2 (if you count the China spring GP as 1/2) races into the season and Liam Lawson is already out of his Red Bull seat, being degraded to Racing Bulls and switching places with Yuki Tsunoda. I don’t have the stats to prove it, but I’m guessing this is the least patience any F1 team has ever shown with a new driver, especially a youngster who’s 20 years old…

As noted in my F1 post last week, Lawson isn’t completely new to F1, having started in 11 races and finished P9 at best. That said, his first races at Red Bull have been a complete nightmare, qualifying in P18 at best and not finishing better than P12. That’s not good enough for Red Bull, and Lawson thereby becomes the next in a relatively long line of second drivers at the team who don’t manage to perform in a car that by the looks of it, only Max Verstappen can handle. However, the question still remains if Red Bull didn’t test Lawson enough before signing him to notice it?

Red Bull are of course stressed about the Constructors’ title that they in my opinion will struggle greatly to regain this year. There is however another reason next to Lawson’s poor results playing in here, and as so often, it’s called money. The next GP is at Suzuka in Japan, and rumor has it that Tsunoda’s sponsors have paid north of USD 10m to Red Bull on the condition that they put Yuki in Lawson’s seat in time for it. Let’s see what happens. No doubt Tsunoda is a fast driver, but other second drivers at Red Bull have been so as well – in other cars. We’ll see if Yuki manages to handle that raging bull any better than Lawson in front of his home crowd! If so, Lawson isn’t about to return, at least not this season.