Devotion to Max Verstappen is creating impossible job at unsettled Red Bull as Yuki Tsunoda prepares to step up
Today at 09:01 PM
Red Bull's decision to switch drivers has dominated F1's talk for a whole week now. After just two grands prix, Liam Lawson was dropped from the senior Red Bull Racing squad back down to the junior Racing Bulls team.
Yuki Tsunoda was promoted the other way and finds himself in the toughest job in motorsport – being teammate to reigning world champion Max Verstappen. It's something of which the world champion is very aware.
If you count Sergio Perez, who raced alongside the all-conquering Dutchman for four seasons until the end of last year, Tsunoda is his third teammate in four races.
During his ten seasons with Red Bull, Verstappen has already dispatched six other drivers. Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly, as well as Carlos Sainz Jr in the junior squad, have taken what they learned from Red Bull and transferred those skills to rival teams. Red Bull's investment in young drivers is currently benefiting Williams and Alpine.
Which isn't to say Red Bull haven't struck gold in the past. Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel, with four titles apiece, are the third and fourth most successful drivers this century. But it could be argued the people making the company's decisions on drivers – team principal Christian Horner and motorsport adviser Dr Helmut Marko – have damaged more careers than they have built. Does anyone even remember Daniil Kvyat or Brendon Hartley?
Red Bull are third in the standings and they would be fourth if Ferrari hadn't been disqualified in Shanghai. The fact is Red Bull have never been more unsettled. There has been an exodus of senior technical staff to rival teams and perhaps that is why the RB21 is struggling.
They have also become a team built around one driver – Verstappen – who has a very particular driving style, so much so that competent drivers like Perez and Lawson cannot get to grips with a car that's been designed for one customer, not two.
Like every best-of-a-generation driver, he is selfish and demanding, and perhaps Horner felt he could secure his prodigy for the foreseeable by directing more of the garage's focus this way.
Comments from Verstappen, though, suggest he is not happy with the team's decision-making. He appears to believe that Horner's axe-wielding is cruel and yesterday doubled down on a 'like' he gave to an Instagram post by former driver Giedo van der Garde which described Lawson's treatment as 'bullying or a panic move'.
He said: 'I liked the comment, so I guess that speaks for itself, right? It was not a mistake. Everything has been shared with the team, how I think about everything.
'Sometimes it's not necessary to always share everything in public.'
He agrees the car needs to be more driveable as well as more competitive, adding: 'It's difficult to say how well the car drives because I've not really driven any other car, [but] from what I see out there, [the Red Bull] is a little bit more nervous, unstable in different corner phases than maybe some of my team-mates have been used to before.'
It could be said there appears to be a lack of preparation when it comes to Red Bull's incoming drivers. Compare 23-year-old Liam Lawson's pre-season to that of 18-year-old rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli's at Mercedes. He had more test days than Lawson in older cars last year and appears to have been given a more supportive environment by Toto Wolff and his team.
With no previous GP starts, Antonelli has come flying out of the blocks to earn his team 22 points in Australia and China. He is fifth in the standings. Lawson is 17th.
Perhaps Antonelli is just a better driver and Merc beat Red Bull to signing the next generation's VET-VER. Should Horner and Marko have given Lawson more time to prove himself? Horner says it was clear to the engineers his rate of improvement was not sufficient. He was never going to get anywhere near Verstappen's tail.
Lawson had got the nod over Tsunoda, 24, because it was felt the Japanese driver was insufficiently mature and less capable of withstanding the pressure, despite his 87 GP starts. Horner did not think he could handle it but has had a change of heart.
He does seem to have matured in these past six months. But this is the biggest confluence of pressure imaginable. Tsunoda is jumping into a problem car, built by a team with the highest expectations and not a little internal politicking. He has never driven a lap in it and is going straight into his home race. There's a Honda engine in the back, and Honda owns the circuit. And he knows if he doesn't do better than Lawson this weekend and Perez over the course of the season, his career could be over.
It is high stakes but Tsunoda does have talent and deserves his chance. If he fails to get into Q2 and leaves Suzuka sans points, it is time for Red Bull to admit they have screwed up – and it's the car that's the problem.
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