Red Bull’s ‘very tight’ Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda call explained

Christian Horner said Red Bull’s decision to choose Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda for F1 2025 was a “very tight” call.

Red Bull announced on Thursday that Lawson would be promoted from sister team Racing Bulls to race alongside Max Verstappen in 2025 following their decision to ditch Sergio Perez.

Despite making only 11 grands prix starts spread over two seasons and having not convincingly outperformed teammate Tsunoda, it was the 22-year-old New Zealander who ultimately got the nod to be Red Bull’s next driver.

Horner explained that the decision to promote Lawson came down to fine margins.

"It was very, very tight between the two of them," Horner told ESPN.

"I mean, Yuki is a very fast driver. He's got three or four seasons of experience now. He did a very good job in the tyre test for us in Abu Dhabi where the engineers were impressed with how he performed.

"With Liam, when you look and go into the analytics of his race, pace was slightly better in the races that he did. His qualifying pace was very tight with Yuki, and you've got to assume that the potential with Liam having only done 11 grand prix, is he's only going to get better and stronger. He's shown real mental resilience and toughness.

“A couple of things have stood out with me with Liam - how versatile he is. You put him into a situation, he gets on with it. If you remember his debut in Zandvoort after Daniel broke his fingers, he was racing against Max on his out lap.

"He's got that kind of gritty racer mentality. He did a year in the DTM where he adjusted to driving a Ferrari GT car incredibly quickly alongside Alex Albon and generally had the upper hand.

“And again, his racecraft has been really one of his key strengths. So he's not afraid to go wheel-to-wheel and even rub wheels where necessary. So I think he's going to do a great job for us.

"The engineers have enjoyed working with him through the running that he's done this year. He's got a good work ethic as well. So it is great to have Yuki still involved with the Racing Bull scene next year. And of course he's on standby should he ever be required.”

Red Bull won’t put ‘too much pressure’ on Lawson

Lawson will be Verstappen’s fifth teammate at Red Bull, and his fourth since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018.

Predecessor’s Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Perez have all been dropped for failing to get close enough to Verstappen.

Horner has acknowledged that Lawson faces a “daunting” task going up against Verstappen - a job considered the hardest in F1 - but insisted Red Bull will avoid putting too much pressure on their second driver.

"I think the key thing is not to put too much pressure on him and not to put too much pressure on himself that he's going out against the best driver of his generation,” Horner said.

“And I think that he just needs to almost ignore the data of what's going on on car 1 and just focus with his own engineering team, what he's doing, and just do the best job that he can and he'll be fine. And hopefully we can support him in that.

"Hopefully we'll be able to provide a car that suits him as well as Max next year, and we'll see how he goes."