Motor racing-Red Bull demotion ‘tough’, says Lawson

(Reuters) -Formula One driver Liam Lawson said his demotion by Red Bull after two races was “tough” but he was excited to return to his former team Racing Bulls.

The New Zealander was replaced by Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda in a straight swap between the sister teams after not scoring a point in Australia and China as defending champion Max Verstappen’s new teammate.

“Being a @redbullracing driver has been my dream since I was a kid, it’s what I’ve worked towards my whole life,” the 23-year-old wrote on social media.

“It’s tough, but I’m grateful for everything that’s brought me to this point.”

Lawson qualified 18th and failed to finish in Australia before qualifying last for the sprint and race in China. He will join French rookie Isack Hadjar at Italy-based Racing Bulls where he raced 11 times across 2023-24.

Lawson’s demotion has gone down poorly in New Zealand where pundits and motor racing figures blamed Red Bull for not giving him time to prove himself.

“It’s a cruel sport, but I really don’t think he was given a fair shot IMO,” IndyCar driver Scott McLaughlin said.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said Lawson’s replacement was “purely a sporting decision” and the energy drink company’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko said the driver needed to rebuild his confidence.

“His performance was unfortunately not good enough and that comes from self-confidence,” the Austrian told BBC radio.

Marko said Tsunoda would be given until the end of the season at Red Bull and Lawson’s move should not be seen as a demotion.

“He’s not kicked out of F1 and Racing Bulls will give him the chance to recover and his career will start again,” he added.

“Just look in the past, it was (Pierre) Gasly, it happened the same, also to (Alex) Albon and they recovered and they are now competitive F1 drivers.”

Both Gasly, now at Renault-owned Alpine, and Williams’ Albon were dropped by Red Bull in the past and rebuilt their reputations at the sister team.

Marko confirmed Verstappen had performance clauses in his contract that would allow the four-times champion to leave if the team failed to meet certain targets.

“We have to make sure he (Verstappen) gets a car where he can win,” he said.

“There was a very constructive meeting last Thursday, Max with the engineers, and they discussed how to go forward to improve the car and make it more drivable and to have a wider range of drivability, and all that went very positive.”

Japan hosts the next round of F1 at Suzuka on April 6.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne/Alan Baldwin in London; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christian Radnedge)