Liam Lawson has had a disastrous start to his career as a full-time Formula 1 driver this season. He failed to make it out of Q1 before crashing in the Australian Grand Prix, and then he qualified 20th and last for both the sprint race and the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai International Circuit.
Even before the 2025 season began, there was talk about Red Bull replacing Lawson, not only because of their history of making in-season driver changes due to lack of performance, but because of Lawson's own "messy affair" in preseason testing.
Now that "messy affair" is arguably the highlight of his season thus far, and the rumors about Lawson being replaced by Red Bull have never been louder.
The obvious replacement candidate would be Yuki Tsunoda, whom many believe should have been the one given Sergio Perez's seat alongside Max Verstappen over Lawson to begin with.
Tsunoda has been driving for sister team Racing Bulls since 2021 and has shown incredible pace and progress over the past four-plus years. Lawson, although he did a solid job at the team in 11 replacement starts across 2023 and 2024, did enter the year with only those 11 starts to his name.
Yet even if Lawson is dropped, Tsunoda may not be his replacement.
According to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, rookie Isack Hadjar is in the frame to potentially replace the struggling 23-year-old New Zealander.
Make no mistake about it; Hadjar has impressed with his pace in the Racing Bulls entry, even managing to outqualify Tsunoda in Shanghai. But Lawson had his own moments of similar achievement over the last two seasons, and that has obviously not translated.
Should Red Bull turn to somebody other than Lawson to serve as Verstappen's teammate for the rest of the 2025 season, then whenever that happens, Tsunoda should be the driver given the nod to do so.
Lawson obviously needs more experience with the sister team. Starting his full-time career in one of the two main Red Bull cars was a mistake.
The team cannot afford to make the exact same mistake with Hadjar, no matter how well he performs over the next several Grand Prix weekends.
The team made a similar change in 2019, replacing Pierre Gasly with rookie Alex Albon in the middle of the season, instead of going with the far more experienced Daniil Kvyat. While Albon certainly held his own, he entered up being dropped by the team altogether after the 2020 season.
There is, of course, ongoing speculation that Tsunoda's role with Red Bull is connected to Honda, and that with Honda set to leave the team for Aston Martin at the end of the year, the Japanese driver will be dropped by Red Bull, even though his performance clearly warrants an extension.
Perhaps the best way for Red Bull to confirm that would be to pass up Tsunoda yet again for another inexperienced rookie, and hope for the best when that rookie is matched up against the four-time reigning world champion. Is it another disaster waiting to happen?