The final day of the first non-race week of the 2025 season is coming to an end. From tomorrow, F1 fans can start looking forward to the third round of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix at the iconic Suzuka Circuit. Yuki Tsunoda isn’t feeling too nervous heading into his Red Bull debut, GPblog analyses Mercedes front wing flexing, and Red Bull’s supposed special livery for engine supplier Honda’s home race has been teased once again with a team kit sneak peek. See all the news from the calm before the storm of race week below.
For Honda, Yuki Tsunoda’s promotion to Red Bull Racing is a major milestone. At the Japanese Grand Prix, a homegrown driver is making his debut for a top team powered by a Japanese engine. However, Red Bull insists that the timing of Tsunoda’s first race in the RB21 at Suzuka is purely coincidental.
Yuki Tsunoda’s tenure at Red Bull Racing could be the perfect opportunity for Red Bull Racing to put Arvid Lindblad in the car, thinks former F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya. There’s a caveat, though, that could make the situation backfire on the Austrian team, and the Japanese driver holds the key.
The Japanese Grand Prix will be a special event for Red Bull Racing. After years of having a Honda engine, this will be the final time they will run with those power units at Suzuka. The team have already hinted at a special livery, and the first picture of their team kit has also surfaced.
After two rounds into the 2025 Formula One season, Red Bull Racing have announced that Yuki Tsunoda will replace Liam Lawson from the Japanese GP onwards. The driver has set his sights on a clear goal next weekend.
Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve usually does not mince his words about F1 drivers, and that was also the case about Liam Lawson as well. According to the Canadian, the driver’s attitude was also the cause the Austrian swapping their drivers.
Red Bull have performed another of their stunning mid-season driver changes – and this week’s was perhaps their most brutal yet.
Pierre Gasly was shown the door 12 races into his first year with the team. Daniil Kvyat was turfed out four grands prix into his second season to make way for Max Verstappen.
But they enjoyed long tenures compared to Liam Lawson. He has been demoted to Red Bull’s second team after just a pair of appearances for the team. It’s the soonest any team has dispensed with a new driver at the start of a season for more than three decades.
It’s hard not to take the sudden switch as a sign the team has realised it made a mistake when it picked Lawson at the end of last season. But does that make it right to drop him so soon?
For
Lawson never got anywhere near the pace of his team mate Max Verstappen. He was over a second off the pace in Australia and still three-quarters of a second away in China. No other driver was that far behind his team mate.
The pace wasn’t there in the races either. He was far from the only rookie to hit trouble in Melbourne but he was nowhere near Verstappen’s pace up to that point either. In China he tried a radical change in set-up, to no avail.
Last year Red Bull lost the constructors’ championship because they failed to replace Sergio Perez when he was clearly under-performing. The decision on Lawson is tough but Red Bull couldn’t risk a repeat of last season.
Against
Red Bull never gave Lawson an adequate opportunity to show what he is capable of and have dropped him too soon. Both his starts came on tracks he had never previously driven at in any category.
Technical problems meant he completed fewer laps than any driver in testing besides the unwell Lance Stroll. More problems prevented him from driving in final practice in Australia.
His performance in China showed a slight improvement in one-lap pace, but as this was a sprint race weekend he was again short of practice time. Aside from a spin on slick tyres in the rain he has largely avoided incidents and did not deserve to be ousted so hastily.
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I say
It’s hard to take issue with Red Bull’s decision to replace Lawson based on his performance alone. He did not look up to the job.
But that only underlines what a strange decision it was to give him the seat in the first place. Red Bull’s reasoning was that he had virtually matched Tsunoda’s pace despite having less experience, which is fine up to a point, but that lack of running was always going to count against him when it came to getting used to an unfamiliar car.
I’m sceptical about the team’s claims that Tsunoda has made a leap forward in performance since the end of last year. He’s shown flashes of pace in qualifying, but that is in part down to the quality (and drive-ability) of his car. His mistake in Shanghai allowed his less experienced team mate to out-qualify him.
Tsunoda was probably the right choice in the first place, though that remains to be seen, and it’s hardly fair on Lawson to write him off so quickly. So I tend to disagree that Red Bull have done the right thing with this call – though I hope for Tsunoda’s sake his debut on home ground goes well.
You say
Is Red Bull right to replace Lawson with Tsunoda at this point in the season? Cast your vote below and have your say in the comments.
Do you agree Red Bull have done the right thing by replacing Liam Lawson with Yuki Tsunoda after two rounds?
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Strongly disagree (29%)
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Slightly agree (43%)
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Total Voters: 7
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Liam Lawson’s demotion to Racing Bulls after just two Grand Prix for Red Bull Racing is the best outcome for the Kiwi driver, says former F1 driver, Juan Pablo Montoya.
Yuki Tsunoda would not have done so, but even if he had wanted to: it would have been impossible for him to turn down F1 promotion to Red Bull Racing, it appears, after he was appointed as Liam Lawson’s replacement.
Yuki Tsunoda would not have done so, but even if he had wanted to: it would have been impossible for him to turn down F1 promotion to Red Bull Racing, it appears, after he was appointed as Liam Lawson’s replacement.
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