Doomed to fail? Our verdict on Red Bull picking Lawson to replace Perez
Thu 19, Dec, 2024
Source: The Race
The decision is made and official: Liam Lawson is Max Verstappen's next Red Bull Formula 1 team-mate in place of Sergio Perez.
Is he the right choice? Is he the next Verstappen or just another Red Bull stop-gap?
Our team give their verdict:
This might not last long
Matt Beer
No offence meant to Lawson here - I think he's done a decent enough job that if Red Bull Racing leadership sees too many impossible-to-reconcile downsides to Yuki Tsunoda, then Lawson is the absolutely logical drop-in solution and will be an upgrade on recent Perez.
But Red Bull's most important driver decision now is who it lines up to be Verstappen's long-term successor, and there's no evidence yet that Lawson could be its new leader.
That person is probably going to have to be poached from somewhere else. It's not an immediate problem, but it's one that will need addressing relatively soon.
In the meantime, Lawson just feels like the latest person who'll have their reputation battered by being Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate before the team moves on to the next candidate for a role in which it's very, very hard to impress.
Verstappen's natural successor?
Sam Smith
For me this makes sense in every which way possible and in particular for Lawson himself, who for once might have got the Red Bull timing just right.
That's because I think Verstappen will go to Aston Martin in 2026 or 2027 meaning that Lawson, should he be much more consistently effective than Perez, and on the evidence of this season that shouldn't be too taxing, will become Verstappen's natural heir and successor.
Lawson still has a lot of growing up to do in a racing sense but there's enough there already for him to become the next big Antipodean hero. And learning from Verstappen for a year or two will be incredibly beneficial for what promises to be a long and probably highly decorated F1 career.
Why not Tsunoda?
Scott Mitchell-Malm
I would have put Tsunoda in the car and found out first-hand whether he is capable of handling life as Max Verstappen's team-mate or not. Then you can replace him if he isn't, and Lawson's gained crucial extra F1 experience in the meantime.
Instead, promoting Lawson immediately is essentially asking him to be a Verstappen-level driver. And Lawson may have interesting F1 potential, as a driver who seems to turn heads as more of an all-round package than through searing speed, but few can see him as a Verstappen-level driver.
The rationale comes down to being so self-assured Red Bull is confident he can deal with the pressure of driving for the senior team, and also the admission that Tsunoda's really fast so it is impressive Lawson is so close when he has such little experience.
They are valid arguments. But so are the arguments in favour of Tsunoda: speed, experience, and the progress he's made in the areas Red Bull has demanded improvements. And I don't see overwhelming evidence that Lawson won't make as many mistakes as Tsunoda supposedly would.
Lawson could be a very good grand prix driver long-term. But is he so special a talent that he's ready to go in alongside Verstappen after 11 races in F1, accrued across two cameo stints?
I really want this to work, because I think it's potentially a high-upside pick and a case of a team backing its own youngster. Great - more of that, please. But when the driver's ready. Because all of the recent Red Bull evidence says that this won't work.
Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Daniil Kvyat - they all got burned being thrown in at Red Bull too early. The last driver this strategy worked for is Verstappen. You therefore have to be confident that Lawson is more like Verstappen than the others.
And that is not something the evidence so far supports.
Looks more experienced than he is
Mark Hughes
The most impressive part about Lawson's two part-seasons is just how he was immediately confident and racy. He's looked like a more experienced racer than he actually is.
He fears no-one in wheel-to-wheel battles, has a hard-headed attitude which will stand him ion good stead. Relative to Tsunoda this year, he was immediately quicker than Daniel Ricciardo too, so was a good replacement there.
But quick enough for the Red Bull role? That's the big question.
Every one of Verstappen's team-mates since peak era Ricciardo in 2018 has fallen between the cracks of not being an in-team challenge to Max overall but quick enough to take points off championship rivals in other fast cars.
There are probably only about half a dozen drivers around who would slot into that gap. We don't know for sure that Lawson isn't one of them.
But there was a more obvious choice, from outside the team's stable. As we all know.
Look further down Red Bull's driver ladder
Josh Suttill
I agree with the sentiments that Lawson probably won't be much more than a solid short-term option at best.
But there are two drivers with potentially higher ceilings that are well worth keeping an eye on during 2025.
One is Isack Hadjar, who I'm surprised will probably only get the Racing Bulls seat by default (ie if Perez wasn't dropped or Franco Colapinto was more easily extractable, Hadjar would be on the sidelines in 2026).
He's looked seriously quick in Formula 3 and Formula 2. He's got that pure speed mixed with rawness about him that arguably no Red Bull F1 driver has had since Verstappen.
Arvid Lindblad is an even greater manifestation of that. The 17-year-old is exactly the kind of driver who can turn around Red Bull's misfiring driver record and if he impresses on debut in F2, there's no reason why Red Bull shouldn't apply the aggressive driver promotion strategy that it has seemed weirdly resistant to in recent years and get him in the Racing Bulls car for 2026.
Red Bull seems to recognise this too; it's been quietly talking up Lindblad in a way it hasn't done about a junior driver for a long time. He's far more likely to be its answer to Kimi Antonelli/Ollie Bearman than Lawson.
Lawson might not be a long-term solution to Red Bull's driver problem, but Hadjar or Lindblad could be...
It should have signed Sainz months ago
Jack Benyon
Whether this is a huge drop off personally, or Red Bull has fallen victim of developing its car in a way one of its drivers can't extract the pace from it (ahem, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon haven't done badly post-Red Bull, have they?), it's been clear for a while now that regardless of late-season form, too much has happened to make a future survivable between Red Bull and Perez.
The only real problem is it hasn't had a suitable replacement. Only...it did have all along. It feels borderline incompetent - and frankly, offensive - that we have proven race winner Carlos Sainz in a Williams and not a Red Bull next year.
I don't care about the potential needling between sides, families, whatever, and Red Bull has survived internal turmoil and still succeeded anyway - this year is proof. If Red Bull was serious about success in the constructors' and fighting against McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes on an even playing field, it had to get Sainz. And the fact it hasn't makes me both angry we're missing out on that hypothetical battle and devoid of any sympathy for the situation this team is in.
I only have sympathy for Perez and how - rightly or wrongly - he'll be known as another driver not capable of driving a car designed with Verstappen in mind.
For a long time the narrative has been that Red Bull has to give Verstappen a submissive team-mate for sacrificial slaughter. Who says Max wouldn't enjoy going up against Sainz once more to establish an even greater legacy as not only a champion and slayer of rivals, but proven as the best even when his team-mate is strong, too?
The only saving grace for Red Bull in missing out on Sainz is that Mercedes was just as silly not to go for him either and loan Antonelli to Williams for a year or two. Therefore in any battle Red Bull has with Mercedes, it won't have to deal with the missed opportunity it created for itself by not signing its clear best option.
Lawson should be worried
Gary Anderson
If we go by history, I'm not sure Lawson's career at Red Bull will be as long as Perez's was.
Perez came in with upwards of 10 years experience with other teams and had won races and been on the podium. If we go back to other less experienced drivers who got the 'big' opportunity to move from the junior team and join the mother ship they didn't last so long.
There were others before him but starting with Daniel Kvyat, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and now Sergio Perez all being ruthlessly replaced, it should send out a message: perform or your time is limited.
He will have to earn it from day one and that won't be easy. It will mean Red Bull will need to build a better car than it did for 2024 to allow him to show his talent. But against Verstappen, talent or no talent, it won't be easy and we know Verstappen's more than capable of world-class performances in a car that isn't up to it.