Red Bull rule out further F1 driver changes after shock swap

Red Bull say Yuki Tsunoda will see out the rest of the 2025 F1 season regardless of his performances.

That is according to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, who insists there will be no further driver changes at the team this year following their sudden and brutal decision to axe Liam Lawson.

Lawson is returning to Racing Bulls with Tsunoda moving in the opposite direction after being promoted to the main Red Bull team from the Japanese Grand Prix.

23-year-old Lawson’s demotion came just two races into the new F1 season following a nightmare start to his Red Bull career alongside Max Verstappen.

Tsunoda will become Verstappen’s fifth different teammate since Daniel Ricciardo left the team at the end of 2018 but Marko has ruled out further driver changes at Red Bull this year.

Lawson initially got the nod over Tsunoda to replace the underperforming Sergio Perez in Red Bull’s second seat for 2025 despite only contesting 11 grands prix spread over a two-year period.

"Yuki Tsunoda will finish the season,” Marko told Formel1.de.

"Yuki Tsunoda is a fast driver, we know that, but he's had his ups and downs. That’s why we thought Lawson was the better and stronger candidate.

“But Yuki has undergone a transformation. He changed his management, and in this situation, this was simply the best option.”

Red Bull simulator sessions key for Tsunoda

Marko revealed that Tsunoda’s performance on Red Bull’s simulator following the Chinese Grand Prix contributed to him sealing his dream promotion for his home race at Suzuka.

"We had to act quickly. And everything was positive,” Marko added. 

“Also the technical feedback, which he had often been accused of lacking, that he didn't understand the technical side or couldn't set up a car - that also turned out to be incorrect.”

Sharing his first impression of Red Bull’s troubled RB21 challenger, Tsunoda insisted it was not particularly difficult to drive when he tried it on the simulator.

“I spent about two days in the simulator [with the 2025 car],” Tsunoda is quoted as saying by Motorsport during an event in Japan. “From that experience, I didn’t find the car to be that challenging to drive.

“I definitely got the impression that the front end is very responsive, as people often say. But if you ask whether it felt tricky to handle, I wouldn’t say it gave me a particularly strange feeling, at least in the simulator.

“Of course, how I want to set up the car is probably different from Max. I want to develop my own car setup, get a good understanding of it and gradually get up to speed from FP1.”