With the news that Yuki Tsunoda is replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull after just two races, Motorsport Week looks back at the problems plaguing the Formula 1 giant and its continuing run of drivers in its second seat.
In the almost-nine years Max Verstappen has been a Red Bull driver, he has been paired with five different team-mates, Tsunoda becoming his sixth, and the third in the space of just four Grands Prix.
READ MORE: Max Verstappen opposed to Liam Lawson Red Bull demotion – report
When his first team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo, opted to flee Milton Keynes and seek pastures new with Renault, Verstappen became the firmly established driver at the team, its focal point – similarly to how Sebastian Vettel and Ricciardo, albeit briefly, had been before him.
Except in Verstappen’s case, it seemed to be on a scale never seen before at Red Bull. Even before his first World Championship in 2021, it seemed that a huge proportion of focus in the team was centred around him.
The car is now designed and built for his driving style, providing little wriggle room within the ‘win now’ environment that Red Bull has.
That would naturally prove to be an almost-immediate issue for whoever has taken the seat, and in pretty much every case that has come since, there has been a sense that in some way or other, Red Bull has left its ‘No 2 driver’ out to dry.
Too young, too soon? Gasly and Albon in and out as Red Bull revolving door gathers pace
The first to be handed the keys was Pierre Gasly, making the step-up from Toro Rosso in what was only his second full season in F1.
Gasly’s time was all too brief, lasting just 12 races before being returned to sender. Despite scoring points in nine of those races, one of the factors in ultimately deeming the union a failure was Gasly’s inability to find an agreeable setup for the race, frustrating the team and resulting in a race finish no higher than fourth.
Helmut Marko’s assessment at the time was Gasly “should concentrate on driving” rather than spend more time on the setup, and with that, he was replaced by Toro Rosso’s even more inexperienced prospect – Alex Albon.
The Anglo-Thai driver proceeded to score eight top six finishes in the remaining nine Grands Prix that year, placing him just one place and three points behind Gasly in the final standings.
Perhaps he would now be the man to carry the team’s hopes of an assault on what was Mercedes’ dominance, and place the team at the very top again.
Au contraire.
Fast forward to the Covid-plagued 2020 season, and despite two podium finishes, Albon’s final tally amassed just 27 more points in a season that totalled eight races more than he completed for the team the year previously.
It was deemed not good enough, and Albon was also out come the end of the campaign.
Last year, he provided more detail about the struggles he faced within the team, telling F1: “There are literally 30 or 40 different things you can do to solve one problem and I had no knowledge really.
“I didn’t have experience, I never went through these problems before, and I was underprepared really. I just didn’t have that general racing experience, but life experience too.”
Adding that he felt mentally “destroyed” by the experience, Albon was sidelined for 2021 and returned to F1 with Williams, with which he has been able to reinvigorate his career and rebuild his reputation, similarly to how Gasly did once back in the more nurturing environment of Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri.
Checo and go – Perez’s high to low
For 2021, the team opted for a different tactic and signed an established racer in the form of Sergio Perez, who was entering his 11th season in F1.
Another driver who had suffered his own experience of struggling in a top team [McLaren] early in his career, Perez had managed to rebuild his career, and although it took him until 2020 to win a race, he was seen as a sensible choice, given his experience and ability.
He reaped rewards early on, finished fourth in the championship, taking victory in Baku and helped Verstappen to defeat Lewis Hamilton to take the first of his four Drivers’ titles.
2022 and ’23 followed similarly, playing the support role with two wins in each year to finish third and second in the title respectively, helping Red Bull to the Constructors’ Championship on both occasions.
However, the RB20 proved to be a tougher car to handle, with Verstappen labouring to the Drivers’ title amid a battle with the faster McLarens.
When the car was the fastest at the start of the year, Perez enjoyed a consistent start, scoring four podiums in the first five races, but once the car lost its supremacy, his form fell off a cliff.
He would not see the top three again, his best result being fourth in Miami, which was followed by a myriad of poor performances, including Q1 exits. The writing was on the wall, and Perez was gone.
Laying the law down on Lawson as Tsunoda earns his spurs at last
With Ricciardo, now back at the junior team – Racing Bulls – but being ousted for Liam Lawson after the Singapore Grand Prix, it seemed inevitable from then that the Kiwi was waiting in the wings to enter the stage and Red Bull would soon force Perez into taking his bows.
And that is exactly what happened once Perez’s exit was confirmed, the team returning to the old formula of promoting a young talent from its ‘B Team’ counterpart.
Look how that’s worked out.
Two races, a DNF and an out-of-points finish, and Lawson is out with a flea in his ear, back to Racing Bulls with what must feel like the whole world watching him in his biggest career low.
Frankly, given that Lawson seemed to carry the combination of problems that Gasly, Albon and Perez suffered, it was always going to happen sooner rather than later.
Despite Verstappen scoring two podiums [China Sprint included] and a fourth place already, the RB21 appears to be even worse a car than its predecessor, and the bar he is setting in terms of driver performance is so high that the gulf between him and Lawson looks as wide as it ever has with his previous partners.
With Lawson yet to even complete a full F1 season, one wonders why he was given the task of carrying the burden – or, indeed, the honour and responsibility – of being a Red Bull driver this early.
Suffering the same inexperience that Gasly and Albon had, combined with the issue that Perez had last year of trying to manhandle a difficult machine, all of which have been designed for Verstappen’s driving style, Lawson is now back where he started.
Tsunoda, now in his fifth season of F1 and looking to be more assured and experienced than ever, has been handed the drive many felt he deserved all along.
Whilst it remains to be seen if he can close the deficit to Verstappen and get the team some much-needed Constructors’ points on the board, logic might have dictated this was the decision that ought to have been made all along.
With Verstappen now cemented in his status as one of the modern greats of F1, but the consistent issues of his team-mates struggling in the second seat, it’s high time that Red Bull investigates its car issues thoroughly before Tsunoda suffers the same fate as his predecessors.
The moral of the story is: Red Bull can give you wings, but it can also certainly clip them.
READ MORE – Helmut Marko admits Red Bull made ‘a mistake’ with Liam Lawson promotion
