Mark Webber explains how Eddie Jordan would have reacted to brutal Liam Lawson axing

03/29/2025 11:57 AM

Mark Webber says he’s confident Eddie Jordan would have understood Red Bull’s brutal call to demote Liam Lawson just two races into the Formula One season.

Red Bull shocked the world of F1 on Thursday as they announced their decision to drop Lawson for Yuki Tsunoda with immediate effect after a wretched few weeks for the 23-year-old New Zealander.

Having initially been selected over Tsunoda to partner reigning world champion Max Verstappen at the start of the campaign, Lawson failed to pick up a single point at either the Australian Grand Prix or the Chinese Grand Prix.

Lawson – who had competed in just 11 grand prix prior to his promotion in December – qualified in 18th place in this season’s opener in Melbourne before crashing out on lap 47.

The young Kiwi subsequently qualified last in qualifying for both the sprint and the grand prix in China, finishing 14th and 12th respectively.

Red Bull’s stunning – and somewhat unprecedented – driver swap means Tsunoda will be driving in front of his home crowd next weekend when the Suzuki Circuit plays host to the Japanese Grand Prix.

Lawson’s demotion to second team Racing Bulls has proven to be one of the key talking points at the start of the 2025 campaign, along with the sad news that F1 legend Jordan had lost his battle with cancer earlier this month.

Discussing Lawson’s axing on the Formula For Success podcast, formerly co-hosted by Jordan, ex-F1 drivers David Coulthard and Webber explained how their friend would likely have reacted to Red Bull’s ruthlessness.

Asked if Jordan would be saying it was the right decision, Webber replied: ‘I think he would be, mate, yeah.

‘I think he would be going: he needs the vice released because he’s going to have a chance to cool his jets a bit, go back to the smaller team where he’s got some experience already, where he’s got some experience already.

‘He’s only done two races with the big team but clearly it looks so challenging. Max is the only one that can extract the lap time out of that car.

‘Sergio [Perez], for certain races last year, is now looking like a magician so it’s interesting what they do there.

‘A few tenths, three or four tenths, is a huge gap in our business but Liam is not connecting with that car, or hasn’t connected with that car. Can he go and just find his feet in his career and get going again in a smaller team?

‘And if Yuki doesn’t fire up in this other car, what happens then if they’re all on the ropes? That’s going to be a very interesting dynamic.’

Webber, who drove for Red Bull from 2007 to 2013, believes Jordan would also have been stunned that both Ferrari drivers – Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc- managed to get themselves disqualified in Shanghai.

‘I think also what Eddie would have called out, he would love this one, he would have asked: both of the Ferraris being disqualified… how is that possible? On his watch, running it as a team boss,’ Webber continued.

‘He would have had a brilliant opinion on that one. For two different things! Which is unheard of so that blindsided a lot of us as well.

‘He’d be in there, he’d be ferreting around and causing chaos with Oscar [Piastri] having an awesome result and obviously the Lawson scenario now that Red Bull find themselves in to try and have two drivers contributing to the performance, let alone just points-wise, but actually having Max.

‘There has to be some corners where the second driver shows Max a way but there’s no contribution and Max is literally carrying that whole car himself.’

While Coulthard appeared to have some sympathy for Lawson, he argued that F1 had never before seen quite such a gap in times between two drivers from the same team.

‘It’s so confusing as an ex-driver to try and understand the difference in time,’ the Scot said.

‘I’ve had some difficult times in my career where you lack confidence, in my case the rear of the car wasn’t stable and it was very difficult for me to build the lap.

‘But it was never the gaps we seem to be seeing. Max is obviously a phenomenon but we’ve seen other phenomenons throughout the history of the sport, your [Ayrton] Sennas, your [Michael] Schumachers and the likes and they never had these sorts of gaps.

‘Okay, someone could absolutely say that Senna was over a second quicker around Monaco than [Alain] Prost for one year in qualifying, but that was in a time when McLarens were regularly a second and a bit quicker than the second row anyway. It was a different era.

‘Formula One is incredibly close right now but, between a great driver and an average driver, you should only be looking at two or three tenths. It should not be almost a second.’

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