Christian Horner said the decision to promote Liam Lawson to Red Bull over Yuki Tsunoda was a marginal call.
On Thursday Red Bull confirmed Lawson will be Max Verstappen’s 2025 teammate and the replacement for Sergio Perez, who has left the team.
Lawson returned to RB this year but has just 11 Formula 1 races to his name — Tsunoda has been at junior team at RB for four seasons and tested for Red Bull at the season-ending tests in Abu Dhabi.
Despite Tsunoda’s impressive form recently, Lawson’s upside put him over the top.
“It was very, very tight between the two of them,” Horner said. “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,” Horner said. “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.”
Lawson is moving into a role that might be considered a bit of a poisoned chalice. Since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and now Perez have all left the team on the back of a spiral in form compared to Max Verstappen, who claimed his fourth straight world title this season.
Perez’s poor form cost Red Bull the constructors’ championship last year.
Horner suggested Red Bull has learned lessons from Perez’s stint in terms of helping Lawson navigating the pressure.
“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. 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.”