Christian Horner issues statement on Liam Lawson's Red Bull future

Red Bull Formula 1 chief Christian Horner has addressed speculation regarding Liam Lawson's future after another difficult weekend for the Kiwi in China.

After not finishing at the Australian Grand Prix last time out, Red Bull would have likely been hoping that Max Verstappen's new team-mate would bounce back, but, if anything, the Chinese Grand Prix weekend proved even more challenging.

Lawson qualified last in both sprint qualifying and GP qualifying at Shanghai International Circuit, going on to finish 14th in the former and 12th in the latter.

Clearly, these are not the performances Red Bull were looking for when they elected to replace the under-performing Sergio Perez at the end of 2024, and speculation is already rumbling in the paddock about how long Lawson might have left, despite only having two races to get to grips with the RB21.

Following the race on Sunday, Horner spoke to Sky F1 responding to speculation claiming that Red Bull are considering swapping Lawson and Tsunoda ahead of the next race in Japan.

"There's always going to be speculation in the paddock," Horner explained.

"As I say, we've only just finished the race here. We'll take away the info and have a good look at it."

Will Red Bull replace Liam Lawson ahead of the Japanese GP?

When queried over claims that a meeting had been scheduled to discuss the team's issue next week, Horner claimed that 'nothing specific' had been planned.

"I think Liam's had a tough couple of races, a tough weekend here. We elected to take him off the grid out of parc ferme to do a significant set-up change and so we've managed to get 56 laps of reasonable data from that. Obviously, we'll take that away, we'll have a good look at it, and, as a group, we'll do our best to support him," the Red Bull chief explained.

"Liam is obviously confidence-wise struggling with the car at the moment, which is why we made some significant changes today to see if we could find a more confidence-inspiring set-up for him."

Despite his struggles so far, Horner still feels that Lawson has potential and that the team simply aren't extracting it at present.

"I think Liam still has got potential, we're just not realizing that at the moment," Horner continued.

"I think the problem for him is, he's had a couple of really tough weekends, he's got all the media on his back. The pressure just naturally grows in this business, and I feel very sorry for him. You can see it's very tough on him at the moment.

"He's a young guy, we've got a duty to look after him and we're going to do the best that we can to support him."

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