Sergio Perez replaces: Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda a ‘tough’ call says Christian Horner

Christian Horner said the decision to promote Liam Lawson to Red Bull over Yuki Tsunoda was a marginal call.

On Thursday, Red Bull confirmed that Lawson will be Max Verstappen’s 2025 teammate and the replacement for Sergio Perez, who has left the team.

Lawson returned to RB this year but has only 11 Formula 1 races under his belt – Tsunoda has been with the junior team at RB for four seasons and tested for Red Bull at the end-of-season test in Abu Dhabi.

Despite Tsunoda’s impressive recent form, Lawson’s upside put him over the top.

“It was very, very close between the two of them,” Horner said. “I mean, Yuki is a very fast driver. He has three or four seasons of experience now. He did a very good job in the tire test for us in Abu Dhabi, where the engineers were impressed with how he performed.

“With Liam, when you look and go into the analysis of his races, the pace was a bit better in the races that he did. His qualifying pace was very tight with Yuki and you have to assume that the potential with Liam only had completed 11 grands prix, he is only getting better and stronger.He has shown real mental resilience and toughness.

“A couple of things have stood out to me with Liam – how versatile he is,” Horner said. “You put him in a situation, he moves on. If you remember his debut at Zandvoort, after Daniel broke his fingers, he drove against Max on the lap.

“He has that kind of raw racing mentality. He did a year in the DTM where he got used to driving a Ferrari GT car incredibly fast with Alex Albon and generally had the upper hand. And again, his racing vehicle has really been one of his keys So he’s not afraid to go wheel-to-wheel and even rub wheels where necessary, so I think he’ll do a great job for us.

“The engineers have enjoyed working with him throughout the run he’s had this year. He’s got a great work ethic too. So it’s great to have Yuki still involved in the Racing Bull scene next year. And of course he’s got to be on standby he ever be required.”

Lawson moves into a role that could be considered a bit of a poisoned chalice. Since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and now Perez have all left the team on the back of a form spiral compared to Max Verstappen who took his fourth consecutive world title this season.

Perez’s poor form cost Red Bull the constructors’ championship last year.

Horner suggested that Red Bull have learned from Perez’s stint in terms of helping Lawson navigate the pressure.

“I think the most important thing is not to put too much pressure on him and not to put too much pressure on himself that he has to go against the best driver of his generation. And I think he just has to almost ignore the data about what’s going on with Car 1 and just focusing with his own engineering team on what he’s doing and just doing the best he can and he’ll be fine. And hopefully we can support him in that.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to deliver a car that suits him as well as Max next year and we’ll see how that goes.”