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Red Bull switches drivers in second car for its Formula 1 team

AP photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, left, walks with teammate Liam Lawson at Albert Park on March 15 in Melbourne. Red Bull has replaced Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda after just two races in the second car on the team that features Verstappen, the four-time reigning F1 champion.
AP photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, left, walks with teammate Liam Lawson at Albert Park on March 15 in Melbourne. Red Bull has replaced Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda after just two races in the second car on the team that features Verstappen, the four-time reigning F1 champion. AP photo by Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, left, walks with teammate Liam Lawson at Albert Park on March 15 in Melbourne. Red Bull has replaced Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda after just two races in the second car on the team that features Verstappen, the four-time reigning F1 champion.

By JAMES ELLINGWORTH / The Associated Press 4 min read

Red Bull has dropped Liam Lawson as four-time reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen’s teammate after just two races and replaced him with Yuki Tsunoda.

The moves, announced Thursday, come with 22 grand prix races remaining on the 2025 schedule for the international open-wheel circuit.

Lawson was given the Red Bull seat despite not having previously driven a full F1 season, and he struggled immediately. The 23-year-old from New Zealand did not score any points, crashed out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 16, and qualified in last place for the Chinese Grand Prix and its sprint race this past weekend.

Tsunoda, a 24-year-old from Japan, moves up from Red Bull’s second team, Racing Bulls, in time for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 6 at the Suzuka Circuit. Lawson will take Tsunoda’s place at Racing Bulls alongside 20-year-old rookie Isack Hadjar.

The change is a sign of how cutthroat F1 can be and an admission that Red Bull made the wrong choice in picking Lawson. He completed only 11 F1 races before this season and was typically slower than Tsunoda across their six races as teammates last year.