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2025 Japanese Grand Prix

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F1 Live: 2025 Japanese Grand Prix first practice

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Russell uses his softs to lower the best time of this session to a 1’28.809. That is 1.2 seconds faster than the best time from this session last year, and there’s still half the session remaining.

Approaching the halfway point in the session, more drivers are heading out on the soft rubber so we should see some improvements soon.

Isack Hadjar appears to be immediately on it in the Racing Bulls, he’s the leading driver on the hard rubber, third at the moment on a 1’29.974. Lawson is three-tenths off that at the moment.

Verstappen: “It’s super-weird, man. The car is just flexing a lot.”

The track has gone a little quieter. However it’s taken Carlos Sainz Jnr two attempts to find the Williams pit box – they’re by the pit lane entrance this weekend and he’s driven past them.

Tsunoda posts a substantial improvement to go fifth, three-tenths of a second off Verstappen. But Russell finds another chunk and lowers the best to a 1’29.176.

Charles Leclerc put up Ferrari’s best time so far but then Lewis Hamilton pipped it by four-thousandths of a second. Both are three-tenths off Russell, all three on mediums.

Russell goes top with a 1’29.616, seven-hundredths up on Verstappen, still running the medium rubber.

Only Red Bull are running the softs. Liam Lawson improves his time on the hards in the Racing Bulls, going 1.3s off Verstappen and seven-tenths off his new team mate Isack Hadjar on the same rubber.

Tsunoda is a second off Verstappen so far, also on the soft rubber.

George Russell does a 1’29.406, almost matching Verstappen, albeit on the medium rubber rather than the softs.

Verstappen lowers his best to a 1’29.690 which is three-tenths of a second quicker than the best time from this session last year. The track has been resurfaced through the first sector and is clearly giving good grip.

We’ve got a mix of all three different compounds for these first runs. Max Verstappen opts for a set of softs and immediately hits the top of the times in his white Red Bull, well over a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton in his Ferrari.

First practice has begun at a bright and sunny Suzuka. The track fills up quickly with most drivers heading out.

The third change is at Alpine who have taken the curious decision to run Ryo Hirakawa for this session. The 30-year-old WEC champion and Le Mans 24 Hours winner is certainly qualified but what’s strange about this is Alpine have not benched the more experienced Pierre Gasly for this session but Jack Doohan, who is only in is fourth grand prix weekend and surely would have benefited more from the track time here.

We have three changes to the driver line-up for this session. The first two have attracted a lot of attention – Yuki Tsunoda has moved into the second Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen, while Liam Lawson has been sent back to Racing Bulls. It’ll be harder than usual to tell Red Bull’s two teams apart as well, as the senior team is running a special white and red livery in tribute to Honda this weekend.

The first practice session for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix is coming up next.

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/alexander albon/Formula 1/Liam Lawson/Pierre Gasly/Yuki Tsunoda

Two other drivers Red Bull dropped on Lawson’s exit · RaceFans

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Two of Liam Lawson’s rivals on the grid have first-hand experience of getting the boot from Red Bull.

Alexander Albon, who spent a year and a half at the team before being replaced, said Red Bull’s decision to drop Lawson after just two rounds was “tough on Liam.”

Lawson failed to score in either of his first two grands prix in a Red Bull. “He has had a tough few races, but it does take time,” said Albon, who spent a year as a reserve driver for the team after losing his seat at the end of 2020, then returned to race for Williams.

Albon believes more people appreciate the Red Bull has particularly unusual handling traits now compared to his difficult season alongside Max Verstappen five years ago.

Alexander Albon, Red Bull, Bahrain International Circuit, 2020
Albon was replaced by Sergio Perez – whose seat Lawson took

“Now it seems [there’s] more understanding that it’s not an easy car to drive,” he told the official F1 channel. “When I was first in it, it felt like that.”

While Lawson started just 11 races for Red Bull’s other team before his promotion at the beginning of the year, Albon had only done one more when he got his chance. However he found the handling characteristics of the cars produced by Red Bull’s two teams were extremely different.

“From my experience, it’s quite differently-balanced to the [Racing Bulls] car, more than other cars. So when the drivers change from [Racing Bulls] to Red Bull, one car’s quite front-limited and one’s quite rear-limited. So you get this bigger swing than even a Williams to a Red Bull or from a [Racing Bulls] to a Williams.”

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The Racing Bulls chassis proved competitive over the opening races. Yuki Tsunoda, who has taken Lawson’s place at Red Bull, qualified fifth for the season-opener at Melbourne. Albon believes Lawson could rebound quickly back at his former team.

Pierre Gasly, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2019
Gasly lasted just 12 races at Red Bull

“I think there’s a huge possibility for Liam to bounce back and be immediately strong this weekend,” he said. “There’s a chance for Yuki to prove to everyone that he can also be capable in a Red Bull car.

“For Liam, he’s going back to a team that he knows, that he had great results with, a balance that I imagine he’s a bit more comfortable with in a car that he’s more used to.”

“What’s nice to see is Yuki is up for the challenge more than anything,” Albon added. “I think his attitude is the right attitude to have. I think he’s got to go into it believing he can do it.”

Like Lawson, Pierre Gasly returned to Red Bull’s second team when they dropped him in the middle of 2019 after just 12 starts. He raced alongside Tsunoda for three seasons and spoke to his former team mate after the news broke of his promotion to Red Bull.

“We spoke on the phone [about] obviously the way that I was also given this opportunity, just in terms of what didn’t quite work out and things that could have been different,” Gasly explained.

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Although Gasly believes Tsunoda is quick enough to perform well at Red Bull, he said that is no guarantee he will succeed there.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull, Suzuka, 2025
Tsunoda has shown he’s quick enough, says Gasly

“He’s got the experience, he’s got the speed,” said Gasly. “I’ve always backed him up. I’ve raced against him and with him for two years, I’ve seen his raw speed, I’ve seen what he was capable of doing already back at the time. Back in 2021, all these years I’ve always said he is an extremely fast driver.

“So he’s got the speed, I think he’s got a strong character. Does it mean it’s going to be successful in Red Bull Racing? No. Can he be successful in Red Bull Racing? Yes. But it’s slightly more complicated than that.

“I just wish him the best. I’ve shared my thoughts and my experience from my time there. Time will tell, but I think he’s definitely a very strong driver. And in Formula 1 these days, you’ve got many strong drivers on the grid, so it’s not all down to your speed. There’s slightly more to it, but hopefully he can make the best out of this opportunity.”

Gasly said Tsunoda has clearly matured since his first season in F1 four years ago when he showed speed but also was involved in a few collisions and often sounded agitated on his radio. “He always had the raw speed,” said Gasly. “It was a little bit too hectic behind the wheel at times and on the radio.

“I think in that sense he’s matured enough in minimising the mistakes. It’s a fine line between pushing right at the limit or over-pushing slightly too much, which can be quite costly in Formula 1. I think [he’s] tuned that. Looking at the past few seasons, I think he’s been putting in very strong performances.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/Formula 1/Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton says he’s playing catch-up with 2025 tyres after testing disruptions · RaceFans

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Lewis Hamilton began the season still learning how to get the best from Pirelli’s 2025-specification tyres because of disruptions to his pre-season testing programme.

The Ferrari driver said his victory in the 19-lap sprint event at the second round of the season in Shanghai was the first time he had completed a typical race stint on the new compounds.

“I was reflecting after the last two races, I didn’t get to do the Abu Dhabi test because I was obviously still with Mercedes,” he told the official F1 channel. “All the other drivers got to test the 2025 tyres.

“Then when I came to do my Bahrain test and do my long run I didn’t even get to it because [the car] broke down. So my first long run in the dry, 20 laps, was actually the sprint race, [and] I’m quite happy with how I treated those tyres.”

Following that success, Ferrari’s pace in the grand prix proved a disappointment. “The next day we made some changes to the car and it wasn’t the right direction and made it difficult through qualifying and then particularly in the race,” Hamilton explained. “But there’s lots and lots of learnings to take from those two weeks and I feel that’s really helped prepare us better for moving forwards.”

Although Hamilton also conducted running in Ferrari’s earlier cars before the season began, he lacked experience in wet conditions prior to the first round in Melbourne. “I’ve just been highlighting to the guys that my first time driving in the rain was the first race on the Sunday,” he added.

He said managing the tyre temperatures will be especially critical over a lap of Suzuka this weekend. “Getting the tyres in the window can be a challenge,” he said.

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“I think having them in sync – so you can have the rears in the window and the fronts not in the window or you can have the fronts not in the window – you want to enter the first corner with the rears slightly below and then through the corner they can come up.

“If you start with too hot temperatures then [the] third sector often is an issue. Start too cold, you have instabilities and lose too much in sector one. You might gain some back in the next two, but trying to find the balance between that is a real challenge.”

Following his mixed results over the opening rounds, Hamilton said he “doesn’t know what to expect in terms of how the car will feel necessarily,” at Suzuka.

“But I feel positive. Obviously I’ve got two races behind me now and experienced the tyres, for example the C2 tyre that we had in the last race I hadn’t actually driven that before, so I finally got a race with that under my belt.”

The team’s problems were compounded in China when Hamilton and team mate Charles Leclerc were disqualified as their cars failed technical inspections. Hamilton said he’s confident the team will avoid a repeat in the future.

“I was at the factory with the team during the week and I’m really impressed with how the team digested and worked through the analysis and figuring out ways of working better, moving forwards,” he said. “[There’s] better processes and just hopefully [we’ll] make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

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Verstappen keeps quiet but sends Red Bull a clear message over Lawson shambles · RaceFans

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Max Verstappen subtly indicated his view of Red Bull’s extraordinary decision to drop his team mate after just two grands prix when the team announced the decision a week ago.

He endorsed a social media post by fellow Dutch racer Giedo van der Garde which described the decision as being like “bullying or a panic move.”

One week later, Verstappen was unwilling to give any further indication of his views on the matter, keeping his counsel when pressed over whether Red Bull made the right call to replace Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda so early in the season.

“I’ve discussed everything with the team, so the team knows how I think about everything,” he told the official F1 channel. “And I think that’s enough, to be honest.”

The world champion said it was “not necessary” to give his thoughts on the wisdom of Red Bull’s decisions first to promote Lawson after just 11 starts, then cut him loose after two appearances for them on tracks he hadn’t previously competed at.

“Honestly, some bits we discussed, they don’t always need to be told in public as well,” he said, “because anything that you add people start speculating about that as well and I don’t like to read about it.”

Verstappen will know how these words are likely to be interpreted: namely, that he wouldn’t keep schtum if he had anything positive to say about the situation. That ‘like’ on van der Garde’s social media post did the talking for him.

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However his new team mate said he found it hard to accept the team’s original decision to promote Lawson instead of him. “For me at least, it was brutal enough last year at the end of the season when they chose Liam over me,” said Tsunoda.

“It is what it is. I’m sure Liam also understands how quickly things can change within our structure. That’s one of the reasons we succeed, but also one of the reasons why we tend to get a little more attention with those situations.”

Tsunoda also revealed that Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko, who plays an active role in hiring and firing drivers from the top team, has not spoken to him in the week since his promotion was announced.

“Surprisingly, he didn’t call me yet,” said Tsunoda. “It’s very unusual. I’m not sure – maybe he was busy with other things.

“I can’t wait to see him and see how he’s going to react to me. It’s very unusual. [In] F3, F2, F1, he’s always been calling me but this is the only time he didn’t.

“I’m sure there’s not any [problem] from his side. Even in the last few races, we’ve still had a good relationship. We didn’t have any moments between us.”

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But Red Bull’s slump in form remains Verstappen’s focus. While he has been able to extract results from the car, and heads into the third round of the season just eight points off the championship lead, his past two team mates struggled with the peculiarities of their car’s handling.

Although he suspects Red Bull’s car may be trickier to drive than others, Verstappen said it’s difficult for him to judge given his experience.

“I’ve been part of the team now for a long time, so for me, it’s always a bit more difficult to judge because I haven’t really driven any other car,” he said. “So naturally, I don’t know how much more difficult or how much easier another car is, I just drive to the limit of what I have with the car. And that’s that really.

“That it’s not the easiest [to drive], probably, yeah. I think we always discuss things we can do better on the car and that’s what we are working on currently as well.”

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Verstappen keeps a lid on his dissatisfaction over Red Bull’s Lawson shambles · RaceFans

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Max Verstappen subtly indicated his view of Red Bull’s extraordinary decision to drop his team mate after just two grands prix when the team announced the decision a week ago.

He endorsed a social media post by fellow Dutch racer Giedo van der Garde which described the decision as being like “bullying or a panic move.”

One week later, Verstappen was unwilling to give any further indication of his views on the matter, keeping his counsel when pressed over whether Red Bull made the right call to replace Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda so early in the season.

“I’ve discussed everything with the team, so the team knows how I think about everything,” he told the official F1 channel. “And I think that’s enough, to be honest.”

The world champion said it was “not necessary” to give his thoughts on the wisdom of Red Bull’s decisions first to promote Lawson after just 11 starts, then cut him loose after two appearances for them on tracks he hadn’t previously competed at.

“Honestly, some bits we discussed, they don’t always need to be told in public as well,” he said, “because anything that you add people start speculating about that as well and I don’t like to read about it.”

Verstappen will know how these words are likely to be interpreted: namely, that he wouldn’t keep schtum if he had anything positive to say about the situation. That ‘like’ on van der Garde’s social media post did the talking for him.

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However his new team mate said he found it hard to accept the team’s original decision to promote Lawson instead of him. “For me at least, it was brutal enough last year at the end of the season when they chose Liam over me,” said Tsunoda.

“It is what it is. I’m sure Liam also understands how quickly things can change within our structure. That’s one of the reasons we succeed, but also one of the reasons why we tend to get a little more attention with those situations.”

Tsunoda also revealed that Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko, who plays an active role in hiring and firing drivers from the top team, has not spoken to him in the week since his promotion was announced.

“Surprisingly, he didn’t call me yet,” said Tsunoda. “It’s very unusual. I’m not sure – maybe he was busy with other things.

“I can’t wait to see him and see how he’s going to react to me. It’s very unusual. [In] F3, F2, F1, he’s always been calling me but this is the only time he didn’t.

“I’m sure there’s not any [problem] from his side. Even in the last few races, we’ve still had a good relationship. We didn’t have any moments between us.”

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But Red Bull’s slump in form remains Verstappen’s focus. While he has been able to extract results from the car, and heads into the third round of the season just eight points off the championship lead, his past two team mates struggled with the peculiarities of their car’s handling.

Although he suspects Red Bull’s car may be trickier to drive than others, Verstappen said it’s difficult for him to judge given his experience.

“I’ve been part of the team now for a long time, so for me, it’s always a bit more difficult to judge because I haven’t really driven any other car,” he said. “So naturally, I don’t know how much more difficult or how much easier another car is, I just drive to the limit of what I have with the car. And that’s that really.

“That it’s not the easiest [to drive], probably, yeah. I think we always discuss things we can do better on the car and that’s what we are working on currently as well.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/Formula 1/Max Verstappen/Red Bull/Yuki Tsunoda

Red Bull made it clear to Tsunoda “the main priority is Max” · F1· RaceFans

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Red Bull has made sure Yuki Tsunoda has no doubts over their priority after he became the team’s latest driver.

Tsunoda will team up with Max Verstappen, who lies second in the drivers’ championship after the opening two rounds. Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko said this week they need him to “support Max strategy-wise,” which Tsunoda acknowledged today.

The new Red Bull driver said his objective is to “basically be as close to Max as possible, which anyway gives good results for the team, also it allows the team to support other strategies in the race.”

“They’ve clearly said the main priority is Max,” he explained in the FIA press conference at Suzuka, “which I completely understand because he’s a four-times world champion and so far already in the last few races even in difficult situations he performed well.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Suzuka, 2025
Verstappen may not “say the truth” about car – Tsunoda

“So [my goal is] to be as close as possible to Max. Also, to help the development as well with my feedback. They were very happy with my feedback in Abu Dhabi [testing], so just continue that. But the main priority is to be close to Max – which won’t be easy, for sure.”

Tsunoda is Verstappen’s third different team mate in the last four rounds. His predecessors Liam Lawson and Sergio Perez lagged far behind Verstappen’s pace in the Red Bull.

However Tsunoda does not expect his new team mate will offer him much help in understanding how to get the best out of their car.

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“Not really, to be honest, I think even if I tapped his shoulder and asked about the car, I don’t think he’s going to say the truth, you know?” he said. “So I’ll just try to discover it myself in the data, how he’s driving. Also on onboard videos, I already checked multiple videos from him in the last two grands prix.”

He said he hasn’t experienced the car’s “trickiness” so far in his post-season test in last year’s chassis or his simulator runs since joining the team last week. “I’ll feel it myself and I’m sure it also depends on driving style. It will behave a little bit different.

“Once I feel the car, in my five years of experience, I believe that will give me some ideas to sort it out. And if I really struggle, whatever, no, I still don’t think I’ll ask him. I’ll just try to discover it with my engineers.

“So far, they’ve been very helpful. [My engineer] already gave some ideas about what kind of characteristics give drivers very little confidence. That information is already stuck in my head and it’s pretty clear. So I’ll just see how it goes after [first practice].”

While Red Bull showed Lawson the door after just two races, Tsunoda said he hasn’t been given a deadline to get to grips with his new car.

“I didn’t get any specific number of races or time to prove myself,” he explained, saying Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has “been very supportive so far and just mentioned the expectations he has of me – what he wants me to achieve.”

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“The pressure always comes once you hit the track,” continued Tsunoda. “But for now, I feel really relaxed.

“It feels similar to when I was at [racing Bulls]. Once I entered hospitality I was feeling the same, I was only thinking about breakfast. So far I’m not necessarily feeling pressure.

“Those things will come naturally, especially during qualifying [at my] home grand prix. But there’s not much point in feeling pressure. I’m feeling confident and hope I can do something different from other drivers.”

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Ferrari not fearing for championship despite falling to fifth in points

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Ferrari remains hopeful about its championship chances this year despite its poor start to the season, says Charles Leclerc.

The team lies fifth in the standings, albeit tied on points with fourth-placed Williams, after the first two rounds. They suffered a blow in China where Leclerc and team mate Lewis Hamilton were disqualified for technical infringements.

However Leclerc said Ferrari’s underlying performance gives them cause for optimism compared to their situation 12 months ago.

“If we go back to last year, if we look at the first few races, I think the situation in terms of performance was quite a bit worse than where we are now,” he said. “We kind of expected Red Bull to dominate the whole season and obviously by taking the points that were available at the beginning of the season with the performance that we had, we ended the season actually fighting for the championship which was way above our expectations starting the year.”

He said there’s “definitely not this feeling within the team at the moment” that their championship hopes are already looking bleak. “However, there’s definitely the feeling that we haven’t maximised what we could have for these first two races.

“This is frustrating but that doesn’t mean that we cannot recover. We are aware that the season is still very, very long and as I said earlier, small steps after small steps, we can still have an amazing season.”

He said he is “confident” the team has learned from its disqualifications in China. “Whenever you do mistakes you learn from them, and especially when they are costing that much. Obviously everybody is playing with the limit and trying to be as close as possible to it but to have both cars [disqualified] was a big pain and we didn’t need that.

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“At the end of the day It’s been a very difficult part first part of the season. The first two races were difficult, the pace was not exactly where we expected it to be, and to lose even more points than we already did with that, hurts the team a lot.

“But I’m confident that we learn from it and obviously whenever these kind of events happen we try and understand and analyse where did that go wrong and change a little bit the process of that. It was a multitude of things adding up which makes that the margin we took was not big enough.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/carlos sainz jnr/Formula 1/Liam Lawson

‘Just the way things are in Red Bull’ · RaceFans

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Carlos Sainz Jnr said the news Red Bull had dropped Liam Lawson after just two rounds came as no surprise to him.

The former Red Bull junior team member said their decision to send Lawson back to their junior squad so early is typical of how they run their young driver programme.

“I just think it’s nothing new,” he told the official F1 channel. “It’s just the Red Bull and the way things are handled in Red Bull and the way things go in Red Bull.

“We’ve seen it in the last 10 years in Formula 1, or since I’m in F1, that’s the way things are done there. One day you get the chance, the next day if you don’t do exactly the way you’re expected to do you get the upgrade or the downgrade.”

Sainz spent almost three seasons driving for Red Bull’s second team in F1 before leaving the team. While Max Verstappen, his first team mate in F1, was promoted to Red Bull in his second season, the team never did the same for Sainz and did not take the chance to hire him as a replacement for the struggling Sergio Perez last year.

However Sainz declined to say whether Red Bull is facing a shortage of capable team mates to Verstappen now because it failed to give him an opportunity.

“Everyone says it’s the toughest job in Formula 1 being next to Max in a car that Max knows so well,” he said. “If that’s what people are [saying], I guess it’s a good thing for me, but at the same time I don’t care because I’m in the place that I want to be right now and in a good place also for my future, for myself and I cannot wait to see where we go.”

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Red Bull has a track record of making early changes to its driver line-up. Four races into 2016 they demoted Daniil Kvyat, in his second year at the team, in favour of Verstappen. Three years later Red Bull dropped Pierre Gasly after giving him just 12 races.

Gasly acknowledged he “can obviously relate” to Lawson’s situation but said it’s “very difficult to judge anything from the outside” after Red Bull replaced him with Yuki Tsunoda.

“I think only Liam can know his situation and know all the details from it and [you’ve] just got to respect that we’re all trying our best with the tools we have,” he said. “I’ve got no doubts both of them are going to do really well but it’s not really for me to comment because you never really know what’s going on.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/Yuki Tsunoda

Tsunoda expects his driving style will work at Red Bull “otherwise I wouldn’t be here” · RaceFans

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Yuki Tsunoda is confident he will be able to cope with the unusual handling characteristics of Red Bull’s car following his sudden promotion to the team after the last race.

Red Bull moved Tsunoda into the team in place of Liam Lawson, who struggled in his first two appearances for them in Melbourne and Shanghai. He replaced Sergio Perez, who was dropped by the team at the end of last year, as he had fallen far behind the pace of team mate Max Verstappen.

Tsunoda said he is “really looking forward” to his debut for the team, which coincides with his home round of the championship at Suzuka.

“It can’t be crazier than this situation,” said Tsunoda. “First race in Red Bull Racing, but also on top of it in the home grand prix. I think it’s the best situation ever.”

He has only driven the team’s RB21 in the simulator so far. Lawson, who has returned to Tsunoda’s former seat at Racing Bulls, found it difficult to adapt to the car, but Tsunoda is confident he will be able to adjust to it.

“First of all, I didn’t feel yet the exact trickiness what the driver is saying,” he said. “I have a bit of an idea from the simulator, but it’s always a bit different from the simulator to the real car.

“So I’ll see after [first practice] if I have to change set-up, but I don’t think I have to change my driving style because in the end, so far it works well, I guess, with [Racing Bulls], otherwise probably I wouldn’t be here wearing this logo.

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“So I’ll just do whatever I was doing previously and I’ll go step-by-step to build the pace and everything. But let’s see, maybe I don’t have to do that, maybe the car is good straight away. In the last years I think Red Bull had pretty good performance last season, both cars, so I’m quite looking forward it.”

Tsunoda began the season in his fifth year at Red Bull’s junior team. He had his first test for Red Bull at the end of last year at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, which he said gave him useful insight into the peculiarities of their car’s handling.

“If you’re able to push with that car straight away, with more than I guess above 95 [percent] just for the reference, you start to feel a bit of sliding front and rear first thing,” he explained. “You feel sliding once you start turning in, at the front and rear you see the limitation.”

He felt able to push the car and get a feel for its limitations. “In the Abu Dhabi test, fortunately there are a lot of run-off areas, so I was able to push immediately, knowing that even I push and if I go too much I know that there’s a bit of space to be forgiven. That’s why I was able to push it immediately.

“At the same time, at that point, I felt quite okay with the car. The RB20 had a historically big limitation with instability and I think it was quite clear, visible, that as soon as I turned in, it was always happening with that kind of characteristic. So probably even [though] I was not pushing enough, I already felt those things.

“The main thing is I didn’t have any reference driver to know actually am I driving fast enough or not, to exaggerate that kind of limitation. But I think RB20 was quite easy and having already quite big limitation enough to feel that I had instability quite a lot initially turning in.”

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Driving Red Bull’s current car in the simulator reinforced Tsunoda’s impression of the car’s behaviour at the limit of grip.

“I just felt it in the car in the simulator – obviously I’m sure it’s not fully correlated in terms of the trickiness of the car – but at least didn’t feel like crazy, crazy tricky.

“At the same time I can feel what the drivers was mentioning about the instability or driver confidence things. I tried different set-ups that I wanted to try to make it a little bit better and actually those two days were pretty productive.

“At least I know now what kind of direction I want to start and it seems to be a good baseline also [for] overall performance so I think it was a really, really good simulator session.”

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2025 F1 season/2025 Japanese Grand Prix/Liam Lawson

Lawson determined to “prove why I belong here” after ousting from Red Bull · RaceFans

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Liam Lawson says he is determined to prove he belongs in Formula 1 after Red Bull demoted him to their second team just two rounds into his first full season.

He arrived at Suzuka for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix wearing Racing Bulls team wear after Yuki Tsunoda replaced him at Red Bull.

Lawson said the change is “something I wasn’t expecting so early” and came as a complete surprise to him following the Chinese Grand Prix last month. “I had no idea in China,” he said during today’s FIA press conference. “It was something that was decided, I guess, the Monday or Tuesday afterwards.”

“I left China, starting preparations for Japan and I had a phone call basically saying that this was what was going to happen,” he added.

He embarked on his first full season with Red Bull having started just 11 grands prix over the previous two years. Despite losing his place so quickly, Lawson is relieved to still have a drive and is eager to demonstrate what he’s capable of.

“We know how Formula 1 is and how quickly things change,” he said. “If I look back a year ago, I had no seat. I was here a year ago watching and wishing I was racing.

“Then I had the opportunity to race at the end of last year and the opportunity then to go to Red Bull Racing. So a lot has happened in 12 months.

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“So for me, the main thing is being in a car. I have the opportunity to obviously prove why I belong here and that’s what I’ll try and do and that’s what I do every single time I get in the car and that’s what I will be doing this weekend. I think things change very, very quickly: in terms of where my future is, I don’t know, and for me the only way can control that is by driving fast.”

Before the season began Lawson repeatedly said he expected the opening rounds would be difficult as he had never previously driven on tracks such as Albert Park in Melbourne or Shanghai. He expects to have an easier build-up to the weekend at Suzuka, where he previously raced for his new team in 2023.

“That was what I was obviously looking forward to from the start, to be honest,” he said, “to go to a track that I’ve been to before, just to have a proper sort of preparation. I now have that.

“So it’s exciting to be here, it’s a track I think we all like as drivers. And it’s one of my favourite tracks to drive on, so I’m very excited.”

Having returned to the team he started six rounds for last year, Lawson has adjusted quickly to the familiar surroundings.

“We’ve done simulator [work] and it’s all been okay,” he said. “Obviously you don’t truly know until you drive the car so going out tomorrow will be the first proper test.

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“For sure it’ll probably take a session or two to adjust again, but we have three practice sessions here so I’ll be making the most of that.”

This article will be updated

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