Red Bull’s decision to sack Liam Lawson still has the F1 world talking, but the developments shone new light on Sergio Perez’s 2024 campaign.
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It was supposed to have been a fresh start for Red Bull Racing when they decided to replace Sergio Perez with Liam Lawson for the 2025 Formula 1 season. The team was desperate to avoid a repeat of last year, where only Max Verstappen consistently delivered points. However, now, in the wake of Lawson’s struggles, it turns out that Perez, who had been widely criticised for his inconsistency, may not have been as bad as everyone made him out to be.
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Lawson’s promotion to Red Bull was short-lived, though. Just two races in, he’s already been sent back to Racing Bulls. His failure to get to grips with the RB21 was glaring, with a last-place qualifying result in China serving as the final straw. Red Bull wasted no time in revisiting their decision, calling up Yuki Tsunoda in what feels like an emergency swap. It’s a ruthless decision, but it’s also the right one. Here’s why.
Lawson Never Clicked with the RB21
Love him or hate him, Lawson never looked comfortable in the Red Bull. That is the harsh reality. The team hoped he’d be a reliable second driver to Verstappen, but instead, he was nowhere near the front. Two races into the season, and he had yet to score a point, versus Verstappen, who secured a P2 in Australia and P4 in China. The four-time defending champion has single-handedly kept Red Bull afloat in the Constructors’ standings with 36 points – every single point the team has scored so far.
Mark Webber summed it up best:
“A few tenths, three or four-tenths is a huge gap in our business, but Liam hasn’t connected with that car. Can he go and just find his feet in his career and get going again in the smaller team?”
Red Bull’s message to its drivers, stakeholders, and fans is clear: they can’t afford to wait for Lawson to find his rhythm. With McLaren and Mercedes already pulling ahead, the team needs two competitive drivers now. Not in six months. This brings the spotlight back to Perez, whose struggles don’t look so bad in hindsight. For all the criticism he endured last year, it’s easy to forget that he finished P2 in the 2023 Drivers’ championship. Sure, he wasn’t on Verstappen’s level, but at least he was in the fight. Now, with Lawson failing to even crack the top ten, Perez’s performances are starting to look much more respectable.
Webber even acknowledged how difficult the Red Bull car is to drive, saying:
“Max is the only one that can extract the lap time out of that car. Sergio, for certain races last year, is now looking like a magician.”
This statement stands in contrast to last season when every F1 expert and pundit wrote the Mexican diver off as the team’s weak link. And if Red Bull’s second seat is that much of a poisoned chalice, maybe Perez wasn’t as underwhelming as many believed.
The Tsunoda Factor
Now, Red Bull has turned to Yuki Tsunoda for the remainder of the 2025 F1 season. The Japanese driver has been with Racing Bulls since 2021, and while he wasn’t initially picked to partner Verstappen – much to his dismay – he has at least shown flashes of brilliance. He understands Red Bull’s ecosystem, and crucially, he has more race experience than Lawson. If he can understand the RB21 quicker and better than Lawson did, this move could pay off. Still, Webber raised an interesting point: What if Tsunoda struggles, too?
“And if Yuki doesn’t fire up in this other car, what happens then? What happens then, if it’s still [like that] and they’re all on the ropes?”
It’s a fair question because if the problem isn’t the driver but rather the car itself – one so heavily tailored to Verstappen that no one else can extract performance from it – then Red Bull has a much bigger issue on their hands.
At the end of the day, this is classic Red Bull: fast to promote, even faster to drop. They took a gamble on Lawson, and it didn’t pay off. There was no time for patience, no time for development. That’s the Red Bull way – perform, or you’re out. Meanwhile, Perez’s tenure with Red Bull in 2024 is suddenly looking better with each passing race. Who would have thought?
