Red Bull has taken the extraordinary decision to drop Liam Lawson just two rounds after he made his debut for the team.
No driver has ever returned to Red Bull after being dropped by the team. Lawson will rejoin Red Bull’s second team Racing Bulls, which he drove for last year when it was known as RB.
How does Red Bull’s stunning move compare to past decisions it has made? Was Lawson fully prepared to join a top-flight team? And just how far off team mate Max Verstappen’s pace was he? The charts below offer some context to this astonishing story.
Lawson’s experience compared to other Red Bull drivers
Red Bull has a history of dispensing with drivers quickly when it has lost faith in them or is eager to promote another driver.
Daniil Kvyat lost his seat just four rounds into the 2016 season, having driven for them throughout 2015, as the team hurried to promote Max Verstappen. Three years later, Pierre Gasly lasted just 12 races before Red Bull replaced him with Alexander Albon.
The team has often been quick to promote drivers from its junior team. When this has worked, it has paid dividends. Red Bull’s decisions to hasten Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel into their top team undoubtedly paid off.
But often, it has led them to make rapid changes in drivers. Lawson’s departure today is the most extreme example since the team’s early days.
Lawson’s replacement Yuki Tsunoda joins the team with eight times as many F1 starts as his team mate had at the beginning of the year.
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Lawson’s Red Bull F1 mileage
With only three days of pre-season testing, Lawson had little time to adjust to his car. The same was true of the other five drivers who started their first full seasons this year – Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, Jack Doohan, Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto.
However life became that bit tougher for Lawson as Red Bull encountered some problems with its new RB21. He covered the least laps of any driver bar Lance Stroll, who sat out part of the final day due to illness.
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Lawson’s deficit in qualifying
Over three qualifying sessions so far this year – including the sprint race qualifying session in Shanghai – Lawson edged slightly closer to Verstappen, though the gap between them remained wide.
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Lawson’s deficit in grands prix
Starting towards the back of the grid inevitably made life tougher for Lawson in the races but he never made the kind of progress which should have been possible in a Red Bull.
For the Chinese Grand Prix Lawson switched to a different set-up in an attempt to get on top of his handling problems in the car. But in the second half of the race he told his race engineer Richard Wood: “I have no balance, absolutely none.”
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Verstappen’s one-lap advantage over those hired to join him
Since Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull at the end of 2018 the team has struggled to find a driver who can measure up against Verstappen. Lawson’s 0.7-second deficit to Verstappen in Shanghai was more than twice what Perez managed last year.
However, Red Bull’s car was in more competitive shape 12 months ago, and even in his fourth year at the team Perez was often further off Verstappen’s pace than that in the second half of last year. Red Bull’s car appears to be extremely tricky to handle at the moment, and now all eyes are on what Tsunoda can do in it.
Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Verstappen was faster; Positive value: Verstappen’s team mate was faster
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