Inside Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda’s bitter six-year rivalry as Red Bull become first F1 team to axe driver this season
THINGS are about to get a lot more awkward between long-term rivals Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson.
Habitually ruthless Red Bull have dropped Lawson for sister team driver Tsunoda after just TWO races of the 2025 season.
Lawson, 23, has been dumped by Red Bull chiefs after failing to get to grips with the RB21 during the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix.
With the structure set up between Red Bull Racing and sister team Racing Bulls, driver rotations are possible among the four seats.
Lawson’s nightmare season began with him dropping out in Q1 at the Aussie GP, before crashing out of the opening race in Melbourne.
A week later, the Kiwi again qualified last in both the sprint and race for the Shanghai GP – despite sitting in the second-best car in F1 last season.
The RB21 might be tailored for Max Verstappen, but mustering a P15 finish in Shanghai was too much for team principal Christian Horner.
Meanwhile, Tsunoda – who earns nearly double Lawson’s £800,000 salary – qualified fifth in Australia and ninth in China but finished outside of the top 10 for both races, due to strategy calls.
The decision to overlook Tsunoda for Lawson when replacing Sergio Perez – who endured a nightmare 2024 season- before Christmas was a strange one.
Having already spent four years in F1, Tsunoda is significantly more experienced than Lawson, who had entered only 11 grands prix in two short spells across 2023 and 2024.
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Tsunoda, 24, will be given a baptism of fire on home soil as he’ll officially replace Lawson at the Japanese Grand Prix next weekend.
Meanwhile, the New Zealander will return to second team Racing Bulls as team-mate to French rookie Isack Hadjar.
But there appears to be no love lost between Lawson and his replacement driver, who have known each other since their teens.
SunSport takes a look inside their growing rivalry.
Law and order showdown
In the past week, there has been a fiery war of words between the pair, who have raced each other all the way back to junior formula.
Tsunoda was more than pleased when quizzed about a potential swap before the news was announced on Thursday.
The Japanese star said: “Yeah, 100 per cent. The car is faster, I’m sure.”
But a fuming Lawson hit back, saying: “He can say whatever he wants.
“I’ve raced him for years, raced him in the junior categories and beat him.
“If I look back over our careers, I was team mates with him in F3 and I beat him.
“In Euroformula I was team mates with him, [and] in New Zealand, and I beat him there.
“Then in F1 last season I think honestly, if I look at all the times he got promoted instead of me in those early years, then no.
“He’s had his time. Now it’s my time.”
Junior years
Tsunoda and Lawson were team-mates many times during their junior careers.
The New Zealander outscored Tsunoda in the 2019 Euroformula Open, where both drove for Motopark.
The order was reversed in the FIA F3 series that year, though they drove for different teams.
They faced each other again in the New Zealand Toyota Racing Series the following year.
Lawson narrowly failed to reclaim the title he won the year before while Tsunoda, making his debut in the series, finished fourth.
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown is among those who queried Red Bull’s decision to promote Lawson instead of Tsunoda.
Lawson said he “couldn’t care less” about his opinion.
He added: “I think he’s still hurt because I talked about his national anthem.”
Racing Bulls and AlphaTauri
Tsunoda had been at Red Bulls’ junior team AlphaTauri since 2021 -having been the top rookie in F2 – before his foe joined in 2023.
AlphaTauri has since transitioned into Racing Bulls.
They raced against each other in the latter stages of 2024 after Lawson replaced Daniel Ricciardo at the then-named RB team.
The Japanese driver out qualified Lawson 6-0 and went 4-2 in their race finish head-to-head.
Tsunoda was the 12th best driver on the grid last season, finishing with 30 points – which was 12 behind Pierre Gasly.
Meanwhile, Lawson finished 21st, with a respectable four points picked up across his 11 races.
The advantage on the timesheet lies with Tsunoda – perhaps inevitably, given he has raced in 89 F1 races compared to just 13 for his rival.
Horner’s Red Bull rejects
Lawson will be advised that his demotion is an opportunity for him to rebuild his career, in the same way as earlier Red Bull rejects Gasly and Alex Albon have done.
Gasly was demoted to the second Red Bull team after just half a season in 2019 in a swap with Albon, who was given a season and a half before being demoted to reserve driver in place of Perez.
The Frenchman has since moved to Alpine and Albon to Williams, and both have thrived.
Perez no longer has an F1 seat after being dropped at the end of last season with a multi-million pound pay-off.
The decision to ace Lawson has been described as “performance-based” and the team’s “duty of care” to take him out of the firing line.
Verstappen is second in the F1 Drivers’ Championship on 45 points, whereas Lawson has not scored any.
Team principal Horner said: “It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the RB21 at the first two races and as a result we have collectively taken the decision to make an early switch.
“We came into the 2025 season with two ambitions: to retain the World Drivers’ Championship and to reclaim the World Constructors’ title, and this is a purely sporting decision.
“We acknowledge there is a lot of work to be done with the RB21 and Yuki’s experience will prove highly beneficial in helping to develop the current car.
“We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience as he continues his F1 career with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well.”