Yuki Tsunoda’s “sensational” progress has made him fully deserving of a Red Bull drive, but Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies says he is ready to help Liam Lawson rebuild his confidence.

Red Bull opted to swap the two drivers after just two rounds of the new season after Lawson struggled at Red Bull, failing to escape Q1 in either Australia or China or to get anywhere near a points-paying finish on each occasion. Tsunoda was selected as his replacement early in his fifth season with the junior team, and Mekies says the Japanese driver’s development needs acknowledging amid the shock of the switch.

“We’re incredibly proud of Yuki earning his well-deserved move to Oracle Red Bull Racing,” Mekies said. “His progress last year, and more recently from the very start of 2025, has been nothing less than sensational.

“Personally, and collectively, it has been an immense privilege to witness those progresses for all of us in Faenza and in Milton Keynes. Yuki’s energy and positivity has lightened up every corner of our factories and of our garage and he will always be a Racing Bull! We wish him all the success he deserves at [Red Bull].”

Lawson was dropped by Red Bull after only two races with the team — the fastest change by far, beating the previous record of 12 races for Pierre Gasly in 2019 — and Mekies says his focus is on helping the New Zealander regain the form he showed for Racing Bulls last year.

“Everyone here at VCARB is looking forward to working hard with Liam to give him the best environment possible for him to shine in our car and to express the talent we all know he has. He fit in so well last year, and we cannot wait to challenge ourselves and grow as a team. With Isack [Hadjar] having started so strongly with us already, we know we have a young and strong line-up.”

The change takes place with immediate effect, with Tsunoda racing for Red Bull from his home race at the Japanese Grand Prix onwards. Red Bull said the move was made for sporting reasons alone, with the team already 42 points adrift of McLaren in the constructors’ championship.

I’m actually really sorry to be writing this column, for a number of reasons.

One, because nobody likes a smartass saying “I told you” and quoting themselves, but I’m going to be doing exactly that.

Two, because being right on this occasion means a driver having gone through an extremely challenging spell, and not yet having found their way out the other side of it.

And three, because another driver could well be about to face the same fate. All because of Red Bull’s frankly awful decision-making in 2024.

The “I told you” part relates to the column I wrote back in December, when it became clear that Sergio Perez was being dropped by Red Bull. That was the right move, because Perez had been there for a long time, was the experienced driver who was meant to perform, and the environment just called for a fresh start for both driver and team. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

What was the wrong move, was selecting Liam Lawson in his place. That’s not being said with hindsight – here’s an excerpt from that column:

“The common denominator is not a single driver, it’s that seat. And that’s where Red Bull’s next move seems all the more wrong … Red Bull is going to follow its old approach of fast-tracking a driver into a position where they are more likely to fail than succeed.

“That’s not a slight on Liam Lawson’s abilities, but on the environment he’s going into based on the experiences of all the drivers before him.”

If you didn’t see it at the time, you can read the full column here to see how I felt Yuki Tsunoda was the right choice to replace Perez for multiple reasons, with one of the main ones being what has happened to many Red Bull young talents in the past.

Christian Horner insisted the decision to promote Lawson was based on his potential, and that he was on a trajectory that would allow him to improve over time. Clearly two races were enough for Red Bull to decide that improvement was too far into the distance, despite Horner’s words over the winter.

Something else Horner said after giving Lawson the seat was, “I think one of the things we’ll be looking to protect Liam from is expectation.” But Red Bull expected far more from him at the opening two rounds of the season. Red Bull is entitled to feel that there was a minimum level that Lawson thus far failed to reach – P20 in each qualifying session in China is as bad as it gets – but the team needs to admit it got it wrong.

Lawson had started just 11 races when he was promoted. He had, and has, so much still to learn in Formula 1, and wasn’t being given the environment in which to do it. For it to go so badly over the opening two race weekends only proves that Red Bull did not have enough data and information from that initial sample set, despite claims to the contrary, and it only has itself to blame.

If you’re a young driver looking at your future career path, then while Red Bull has always appeared brutal, there was also the appeal of having so much of your career funded, and knowing that if you did a good job you would get an opportunity. But with each increasingly poor handling of the seat alongside Max Verstappen, you are likely to push Red Bull further and further down your wishlist and want to sign with other teams.

And if you’re one of the Red Bull owners – either Chalerm Yoovidhya or Mark Mateschitz – surely the time has come to ask who truly makes these decisions, how, and why?

Should the blame lie at Horner’s door? Or Helmut Marko’s, as the de facto head of the Red Bull junior driver program? Over the past 18 months the pair have not been consistently on the same page and often have different views on drivers, which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it clearly is not a dynamic that is working. And perhaps the fact that both have such strong opinions clouds the ability to get the decision-making right.

Horner’s quotes on the move say the choice was made “collectively”, spreading the share of the blame among a nondescript group. One thing that does is allow poor choices to be made without accountability – it seems only the drivers are being held accountable.

You might think the call to swap Tsunoda and Lawson so quickly into this year is a positive outcome as it delivers the driver line-ups that seemed so much more sensible in December. But it comes at the cost of both drivers.

It’s true Lawson is going back into an environment that he performed well in last year, but he now has to rebuild his confidence after such a painful handling. Just two weeks ago he was preparing for his debut with the team at the closest thing he has to a home race, and he has already been deemed not good enough – at least, not right now.

Tsunoda, meanwhile, has to jump into a clearly problematic car at extremely short notice, and try to perform better than the two drivers who went before him. Oh, and he has to do that at a track that will heavily punish the tiniest mistake, all under the immense scrutiny of his home crowd. No pre-season testing, no full winter of preparation with the Red Bull engineering team, nothing.

The fact that Tsunoda’s greater experience is now being cited as one of the key reasons for the switch also doesn’t hold much water, given that experience wasn’t deemed important enough two races ago. It’s not as if Red Bull had enjoyed a smooth run up to the end of last season, so the need for experience this year could certainly have been predicted.

While the Japanese driver might perform better than Lawson had managed to in the opening two rounds, history suggests he’s still unlikely to be particularly close to Verstappen, and history also suggests Red Bull’s management will blame the driver. Again.

The time has come for the team’s leadership to take responsibility for the failings of its second car and stop shifting the blame. Red Bull needs to find a management structure that is all on the same page and working collaboratively, and will front up when it gets things wrong.

No other team has seen such consistently different performance levels between its two sides of the garage than Red Bull over the past five years, and while Verstappen might be performing miracles, last year he showed his frustration as expectations started to grow that he would keep papering over the cracks, as if it was simple.

Of course the Dutchman is such a talent that you have to make him your priority, but working out how to create an environment that another driver can also be competitive in will benefit Verstappen, too. Right now he’s carrying the team.

Red Bull’s slide from dominant force in 2023 to arguably the fourth-fastest team 18 months later has been quite remarkable. And it certainly isn’t all the second driver’s fault.

Before long, the first driver might tire of the blame game, too.

Red Bull has confirmed a driver swap between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson that will put Tsunoda alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing from the Japanese Grand Prix onwards.

Lawson was only selected to replace Sergio Perez – ahead of Tsunoda – in December, and had just two races with Red Bull prior to the change being made. The New Zealander was unable to escape Q1 in any of the qualifying sessions he took part in, qualifying last in both sessions in China, and was not in the frame for points at either weekend.

Despite the poor start, Red Bull had cited Lawson’s mental strength and greater potential as two key reasons why he was given the drive after just 11 grands prix starts prior to this season, so the decision remains a shock u-turn so early in the year.

The call to make the change was reached with the involvement of key Red Bull stakeholders following the Chinese Grand Prix, and team principal Christian Horner said Tsunoda’s greater experience is now being deemed more valuable against the backdrop of Verstappen’s own difficulty getting consistent pace out of the 2025 car in Shanghai.

“It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the RB21 at the first two races and as a result we have collectively taken the decision to make an early switch,” Horner said. “We came into the 2025 season, with two ambitions, to retain the World Drivers’ Championship and to reclaim the World Constructors’ title and this is a purely sporting decision.

“We acknowledge there is a lot of work to be done with the RB21 and Yuki’s experience will prove highly beneficial in helping to develop the current car. We welcome him to the team and are looking forward to seeing him behind the wheel of the RB21.”

Tsunoda is entering his fifth season in Formula 1 and has a best finish of fourth place from the final round of his rookie season in Abu Dhabi. He finished sixth in the Sprint in China to give Racing Bulls its first points of the season, and qualified fifth in Australia but was unable to capitalize on changing conditions in the race.

Meanwhile, Horner believes Lawson’s return to Racing Bulls – the team he completed 11 races for over the past two seasons as a substitute driver – will give the 23-year-old the chance to rebuild his confidence.

“We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well,” he said.

Red Bull is set to make a driver change after just two races of the new Formula 1 season, with Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson swapping seats, RACER understands.

Lawson’s seat with Red Bull was called into question during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend after he qualified last for both the Sprint and the main race itself, and failed to make significant progress in either event. As reported on Monday, Red Bull then discussed addressing the issue at the earliest possible opportunity and has opted to make an immediate change.

While official confirmation has yet to be provided from the team, RACER understands Tsunoda (pictured at right, above, with Lawson) was in the Red Bull simulator on Tuesday and plans to promote him to partner Max Verstappen ahead of his home race at Suzuka next weekend. While feeling it needs to make a change quickly, Red Bull is set to keep Lawson on the grid with a return to Racing Bulls, with the New Zealander having driven for the team at the end of last season.

Speculation that Franco Colapinto could be in the mix for a Racing Bulls seat amid the movement is understood to be wide of the mark. However, the Argentine — who is currently on loan to Alpine from Williams — is believed to be a driver on the radar should further options be explored later in the year.

Tsunoda’s expected promotion comes after he reached Q3 in all three qualifying sessions so far this season, securing fifth on the grid in Australia and then finishing sixth in the Sprint in China. The 24-year-old has just entered his fifth season in Formula 1 with Red Bull’s junior team, having made 89 starts and taken a best finish of fourth in Abu Dhabi in his rookie season.

The decision to swap drivers after just two races is the earliest Red Bull has ever made such a move, having previously waited four races into the 2014 season before it replaced Daniil Kvyat with Verstappen. On that occasion, Verstappen went on to win in his debut for Red Bull at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to [email protected]. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week. 

Q: Don’t want NASCAR. Just want competence. FOX failed us. Too much to ask for IndyCar, apparently.

Richard Dulany

MARSHALL PRUETT: A first-time problem with a blown circuit breaker, one that took 21 minutes of racing away, is being treated like the biggest failure imaginable by some who I can only assume live in a world of perfection where they never make mistakes or are subject to misfortune. It happened. It was bad. But nobody died. This wasn’t a hospital that lost power and went dark in the middle of a surgery. We didn’t get to see 21 minutes of a damn boring stretch of the race. If anything, the timing of the problem made the race better since some of the nothingness wasn’t aired. Pato led, and kept leading.

If it happens again this year, yes, there will be some serious questions to raise about competence, and one or more people will probably be relieved from their jobs. For now, let’s get back to real life and call the Thermal dropout what it was: an aberration.

Q: Darn it FOX! You screwed up a really good racing event with your technical problems. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like the Thermal track, though it could use some safety barriers in certain areas of the track, and some grandstands. It could use some other support races like the Trans Am Series and International GT Series. Alex Palou is on a different level and I was hoping for a historical moment with Pato O’Ward and Christian Lungaard having aa historic Arrow McLaren 1-2. But Palou reminded me of Alex Zanardi when he dominated the series from 1997-98. I’m wondering if he’ll end up in F1, especially if Liam Lawson struggles with Red Bull Racing?

Alistair

MP: Alex certainly deserves a look from F1 teams, but it’s hard to make the argument that the perfect fit to replace a young driver with a decent amount of F1 experience who’s struggling is with a young driver with far less F1 experience. And pitting him against the best driver in F1 who’s crushed every teammate he’s had, barring Daniel Ricciardo, who killed his own career by leaving for Renault.

Palou is amazingly talented, and would be a steadier operator, but the team wants instant speed and effectiveness, which wouldn’t be something Alex should be expected to summon. Given two guaranteed years? Yes. In this situation? Stay the hell away.

Oh, he’s also under contract to Chip Ganassi Racing, which has sold all of its sponsors for the 10 car on Alex being its driver. So there’s that minor obstacle.

Q: Not sure if this was a FOX coverage thing or what. I noticed during Sunday’s race at Thermal that the track edge kept changing from light blue to red? Just curious as to what I was seeing. Thanks for any insight!

Hisham Bate, Indy

MP: The curb is painted different colors in different areas.

Q: I know you are going to get a ton of letters regarding the FOX broadcast. I get that technical issues can happen, resulting in the broadcast feed getting lost. However, FOX switched to the NASCAR broadcast from Homestead, but the ticker at the bottom stated the NASCAR race was at Martinsville. Oops.

That just leads me to the point that FOX still has work to do on its graphics. When Palou caught O’Ward with 10 to go, the broadcast tags/flags showed Pato in first and Palou (right on his bumper) in third. FOX tried it again, but again Palou was listed as third. Those positions listed on the flag graphics disappeared. I can see they have not done anything about covering up the sponsor logos on the cockpit hoop for the in-car feeds. Sponsors are going to be pissed, and it puts the team owners in a really bad spot.

Social media was busy Saturday with the broadcast graphics mistakes. McLaughlin in the No. 3 had Sting Ray’s cartoon face, among other issues. I’m not trying to pick on FOX, but these are broadcast basics in the year 2025. Once, can be forgiven, but not two races in a row. The technology and knowledge is there. Heck, they’ve broadcast NASCAR for years and years. It’s not a good look.

On the positive side, the warmup show is great and needs to continue.

John Balestrieri, Waukesha, WI

MP: Definite grace period given during and after the first race with the graphics, and the widespread issues in simply delivering the graphics to the international audience. But it was clear that three weeks wasn’t enough time to get the majority of the problems solved, and in fact, some new ones emerged (Sting Ray McLaughlin was amazing).

Where the blown circuit breaker was a fluke thing that didn’t warrant the hysteria that followed, there’s some serious quality control issues for FOX to address with its graphics and presentation. I heard from international fans on Friday and Saturday who were blown away by the 10 steps back FOX took from St. Pete to Thermal, with wrong feeds being shown, missing graphics, and mismatched audio — the booth talking about one thing and the footage of something entirely different being displayed.

Most of that was cleaned up by the race, I’m told, but the shocker here is this isn’t a case of FOX taking its first crack at broadcasting a brand-new sport. This is the same network that airs NASCAR, the NHRA, and has had F1, American sports cars, and Le Mans as staples within the last decade. Why, exactly, it’s now missing so many of the basics on the domestic and international IndyCar feeds is a head-scratcher, for sure.

This has nothing to do with lacking passion or excitement or talent. This is, as former IndyCar president (and college football player) Jay Frye likes to say, failing to execute the simple stuff like blocking and tackling.

Carlos Sainz says he has been left puzzled by one of the biggest swings in performance of his career from the start of his time at Williams to the Chinese Grand Prix.

Williams has enjoyed a strong start to 2025, with Alex Albon scoring a fifth and a seventh in the opening two rounds, helping the team match its 2024 points total already. Sainz, however, was unable to match his teammate in Shanghai, and despite being promoted to 10th by post-race disqualifications he says he has no idea of where his performance has gone after being so comfortable during pre-season.

“We got it right with the strategy, unfortunately with the pace of the car, we were just not there,” Sainz said. “Struggling a lot with the front tires, again. A lot of fuel saving during the whole race, which obviously were not helping the fronts, and we just didn’t seem to have the pace.

“A bit puzzled, to be honest. Not happy, because ever since I jumped in this car, I’ve been very quick in testing, but I don’t know where all that pace has gone for this weekend. At least we have now a good ten days to analyze what went wrong and put together a plan to come back stronger in Japan.”

Sainz says he felt he had the pace to be on terms with Albon and get close to the car’s potential ever since he moved to Williams, but since crashing out early of the opening race he has struggled.

“It is one of the strangest swings of performance that I’ve had in my career, going from naturally and super-quick in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, even at the beginning of Australia, and then suddenly the pace just seemed to fall away from me.

“We did a lot of setup changes that on my side of the garage, followed really what Alex did, [both cars] were pretty similar. On his side, it seemed to respond well to a front graining, and he was a lot stronger. On my side, it didn’t seem to help much, and I stayed struggling with the graining.”

Despite reports in Spain that Sainz was running an older specification of chassis compared to Albon, RACER understands both drivers have the latest monocoque from Williams, with the team having modified last year’s design for this season.

As a result, Williams also has a spare chassis, unlike this time last season, and so Sainz will have the option to use a different chassis to the one he raced in Shanghai at the next round in Suzuka should he wish.

Formula 1’s increased push for relevance and popularity in the United States has been steady with Colorado-based Liberty Media as the sport’s commercial rights holder. We have three races in the country, a U.S.-flagged team — with a second on the way in the form of Cadillac — and thanks to Netflix, there’s a general increased awareness in the mainstream, too.

Despite all of that, a sustained American driver presence remains elusive. Logan Sargeant managed one full season before being let go just after the halfway point of last year. Before him Alexander Rossi made a five-race cameo at the end of 2015, and there was a similarly long gap before Rossi, too, with Scott Speed racing for a season and a half with Red Bull’s Toro Rosso team in 2006 and ’07.

“I love that so many more people here know what it is,” Speed tells RACER. “When I did it, it was so unknown. When I came back to America, after racing F1, to NASCAR, no one really knew. It was actually really nice, because I like the anonymity of just kind of getting to start over. But no one knew who I was.”

Having made it to F1 and NASCAR’s top ranks, Speed knows all too well how difficult it can be to make it to the top and stay there. Nowadays, alongside fellow Red Bull NASCAR alum Josh Wise, Speed runs a performance consultancy business helping prepare the next generation of professional racers. While F1 is bigger than ever in the U.S., there remains a preferred route for young drivers in the country — one that doesn’t require laying down millions of dollars.

“I think the reality of the situation is, if you’re a young kid, 14 or 15 years old, and you’re coming out of go-karts and you want to make a career in motor racing, your best chance of doing that is to go stock car racing America,” says Speed. “We’ve done this now with kids like Connor Zilisch, and the path is well established. Basically, if you have some talent, and you have the drive to do it, you don’t need tens of millions of dollars to make it in NASCAR.”

Nevertheless, Speed insists it’s not impossible for an American to be successful in F1 if that’s what a youngster wants to do, but the established NASCAR route is hard to turn down.

“I’m a big believer that anything you want to do, you can do — and if you really wanted to make it to Formula 1, you’re going to find a way,” he insists. “I really believe in that. I hate when people say that something’s not possible, especially coming from my situation where I made it there with literally zero U.S. dollars put into my racing career.

“So, I know you can. If you really want something bad enough, you can make that happen. It’s just a lot easier to go the stock car route. Stock car racing is still bigger than Formula 1 here, so I think that’s a big driver. The barrier to entry is so high, and here in America, [F1] still doesn’t carry the same weight as stock car racing does.”

With Cadillac on the way next year, a lot of talk has centered around the team employing an American driver. IndyCar driver Colton Herta has been a long-time favorite for a seat with the team, but Speed is curious to see if a proper talent pipeline could develop in the long term — and it’s something he’d be keen to be involved with, too.

“I think it’s something that I’m very curious about myself, and hopefully down the road, I’ll be able to have some involvement and learn more about what that process could look like,” he says. “But at the moment, my primary work is taking kids and grooming them for stock car racing. Hopefully in the future I’ll know more about what that process looks like, and we’ll be able to help bring some along on that path. That’d be a really fun project.”

Speed crossed the Atlantic after forging a relationship with Red Bull and emerging from its American driver search program in the 2000s, and he suggests a similar initiative could increase the country’s on-track representation in European open-wheel racing and F1.

“I think that a lot of it’s about connecting relationships and having something like the Red Bull driver search program that we had, something to help support kids on that path over there. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity there to do it, I just haven’t got my hands on it yet.”

One major difference between Speed’s time and today is the emergence of off-track things like social media and Netflix’s “Drive To Survive” docuseries. They’ve undeniably elevated F1, but Speed admits he’s relieved it’s not something he had to deal with.

“Oh, man, I am unbelievably grateful that I grew up in an era of F1 without social media,” he says. “I value my privacy so much. It’s an unbelievably huge challenge for these guys that I think, goes unappreciated. It’s a real challenge having so many people having access to you, and the lack of privacy that comes with that, and the openness and dealing with the judgment on social media.

“There’s a lot of different challenges that guys face now that we just didn’t have to, so, yeah, I’m glad that I didn’t have to do that.”

While there’s naturally there’s a lot of focus on getting an American driver into F1 again, the new Cadillac team opens the door for talents in other roles, too. Cadillac’s operation will be significantly based stateside, away from the traditional “Motorsport Valley” in the UK that plays host to nine of the other 10 teams, either in full or in part.

With him and Wise working out of the GM Charlotte Technical Center, Speed has had an early peek at the new team’s development. He’s impressed with what he’s seen so far and doesn’t think the decision to base the team away from F1’s conventional talent pool will be a downside, especially with F1’s revitalized business model.

“It’s going to be difficult,” he admits. “It’s no different than NASCAR here in America. All the NASCAR teams are based here in Mooresville or Concord, North Carolina, and so, when you do that, you get this environment where a lot of industry folks are in the area, and that cultivates talent and gets a lot of things done. It’s more difficult to do that outside of that area.

“That being said. Ferrari’s done pretty good in Italy on its own, so it’s not an insurmountable task for one team. It’s not going to be an easy task, for sure, but we’ll see.

“It’s really, really exciting,” Speed adds. “It’s cool to see how that’s all been progressing and that level of involvement. It’s kind of a no brainer, I think, now that Formula 1 has the budget cap, and it’s an unbelievable business model now too. So it’s creating opportunities for teams to come in.

“The series seems unbelievably healthy, so it’s really cool that an American team is now going to go in there. And I think that’s going to be massively important for the sport here in America too.”

Since his F1 adventure, Speed went on to compete in NASCAR — where he contested 163 races across NASCAR’s three national series — rallycross where he won three X Games gold medals and four championship titles, and even Formula E, where he took a podium on his debut in Miami 10 years ago. While his F1 stint ranks highly, he’s also grateful for his opportunities to sample other disciplines.

“I think that the ability to experience different racing cultures, whether that’s NASCAR — which is for me, the most competitive racing series in America, easily — or rallycross, or even drag racing, I love experiencing and understanding different motor racing cultures these days,” he says.

Speed got a chance to sample some more of that variety when he took part in Red Bull’s recent Showrun in Curitiba, Brazil, where he got behind the wheel of an RB-liveried 2011 Red Bull RB7.

“The unique thing about the Showrun in Brazil is the Brazilian motor racing fans are unbelievably passionate. And I kind of forgot what that felt like,” he says. “100,000 people came out to watch cars drive around the road. That’s pretty special.”

The event marked the first time Speed had been in a grand prix car since the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

“It brought back a lot of memories,” he says with a smile. “Obviously a Formula 1 car is a lot different to a stock car and a rallycross car, and so it was kind of cool to remember how different that felt in every way. Not just like physically being in the car, but also just being in that environment. I felt just an overwhelming sense of gratitude for such an amazing career and being so lucky to be able to experience all these different racing cultures.”

It might’ve been nearly 20 years, but getting back in the saddle was a familiar experience for the Californian.

“A Formula 1 car is more of a scalpel and stock cars and rallycross cars are more like chainsaws,” he says. “The way it feels inside, and how much movement you have and how tight things are is just a lot different.

“I got to do a test beforehand to get a feel for the car again, to get used to the controls, accelerating and braking. I think, honestly, if it was the same car I drove or that, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference — it was the V8 still, the same type of controls, but very F1.”

The run brought about a reunion with one of his former Red Bull Junior Team sparring partners, as well.

“The cool thing is Patrick Friesacher was also there. I’ve known Patrick since my very first day at Red Bull,” he says. “Patrick was like the number one or two Red Bull Racing drivers in the junior program, so it was cool to have him. And he’s done so many Showruns. He’s really great at it, so it was really cool to catch up with him and also to have someone to help speed up the learning process for me.”

There was one funny memory it also brought back, one that not many would think all that striking.

“It was funny to be buckled in again,” he admits. “In my whole career, getting into race cars, it was being buckled by someone. And then when I went to stock car racing, I remember my very first race, I got in my car at Talladega and I was waiting for the guys to buckle me in, and they were looking at me like, ‘Hey, are you gonna buckle?’ like, ‘What do you mean?’ I got my helmet on, I’m supposed to do this myself? So that was interesting.

“That one’s part of a big process, isn’t it? It is the last moments before you’re going out to perform, so it’s very much part of your process. Whether you’re sitting there and someone’s buckling you in, or you’re or you’re actually buckling yourself in, those are, like, the last things you’re doing before you go. So it kind of becomes this automatic routine, to sort of let your body know it’s about ready to go.”

Back in an F1 car two decades on from his debut for Red Bull at the 2005 Canadian Grand Prix, making it to F1 in the first place remains Speed’s proudest achievement, and F1’s increased popularity at home only solidifies it.

“Ever since the Netflix show, so many more people know about it. That’s cool for me, because at the end of the day, that’s always going to be my greatest accomplishment in motor racing,” he says. “I went over to Europe as an American, I won championships and I outright raced my way into a Formula 1 team against the best Red Bull Junior drivers in the world.

“That always, for me, will be the peak of my motor racing career by a landslide, so it is cool that people here in my country are starting to grasp what that meant, how cool and how big Formula 1 is. That feels good, like there’s some relatability there now with people.”

Red Bull is seriously considering making an immediate change to its driver line-up following the struggles experienced by Liam Lawson in the opening two races of the season.

Lawson replaced Sergio Perez over the winter after the Mexican’s performances were deemed unsatisfactory, with Perez scoring just nine points in the final eight races of 2024. That came against the backdrop of Max Verstappen wrapping up a fourth drivers’ championship and scoring 134 points across that same eight-race period, and it was the New Zealander that Red Bull turned to after being impressed with his approach for Racing Bulls over the final six rounds.

Although the Red Bull has not been a race-winning car in the opening two races, Verstappen has still managed to pick up 36 points while Lawson crashed out in Australia and was classified 12th after disqualifications in China – the latter a weekend where he qualified last in both Sprint and grand prix qualifying.

Melbourne and Shanghai marked the first time Lawson has driven on either of the two circuits, but he admits he doesn’t believe he will be given time to try and get used to the 2025 Red Bull.

“To be honest, we were even more competitive in [Saturday’s] Sprint — we were able to overtake cars and move forward,” Lawson said. “It’s just we tried something with setup to learn something [on Sunday], it was quite a big step, and unfortunately, it just didn’t work.

“So, a lot to learn from this weekend. A lot for me, personally, to get on top of as well. It’s just been extremely tough.

“I’d love to say I just need more time driving the car, but, obviously, we don’t really have that. So, fortunately, we go to a track that I know, and it’s a track that I like, but I’ll be spending this week very heavily going into absolutely everything to try and obviously do a better job.”

Lawson finished the Chinese Grand Prix over a minute behind Verstappen, who finished fourth, representing a pace deficit of more than a second per lap over the 56-lap race. Although he has raced at Suzuka in both Formula 1 and Super Formula, RACER understands Red Bull will now discuss whether to address the situation before the next race in Japan. Should there be a change made, the most likely outcome is expected to be a promotion for Yuki Tsunoda, with Lawson returning to Racing Bulls.

While Lawson’s future is being considered, a driver swap is not a certainty. Red Bull faced a similar situation last summer when it appeared poised to drop Perez mid-season but surprised many by opting to stick with an unchanged line-up after the summer break.

Amid the growing reports about Red Bull’s current situation, team principal Christian Horner refused to commit to Lawson for the next round in Suzuka, when pushed on the topic following Sunday’s race in Shanghai.

“Look, I think everything is purely speculative at the moment,” Horner is quoted as saying by ESPN when asked if Lawson would still be driving for the team in Japan. “We’ve just finished this race. We’re going to take away the info and have a good look at it.

“I think Liam still has potential – we’re just not realizing that at the moment. I think the problem for him is, you know, he’s had a couple of really tough weekends. He’s got all the media on his back.

“The pressure just naturally grows in this business, and I feel very sorry for him that he’s … you can see it’s very tough on him at the moment.”

Horner also told Sky Sports that Red Bull was thinking of Verstappen’s chances in the drivers’ championship when considering the future of its second car.

“There’s performance that we need to find and we need both drivers up there if there’s to be any chance of fighting for the constructors’ championship. For the drivers’ championship as well, you need to have a second car in play, you can’t just do it one legged.

“Formula 1 is a pressure business, there’s always time pressure, and Liam knows that. Hopefully he’ll respond accordingly and we’ll see where we go.”

Faltering Ferrari facing fresh fallout

There were so many opportunities for alliteration relating to Ferrari’s weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix, but some of them would have landed me in hot water with the FIA given the swearing guidelines that are currently in place.

Still, what a difference 24 hours can make.

Lewis Hamilton’s pole position for the Sprint — and subsequent win — appeared to put the disappointment of Australia into the rear-view mirror for Ferrari, after the team struggled with setup and strategic calls during a challenging opening weekend.

The presence of Hamilton, who it must be said was remarkably restrained after such a messy start, has only served to increase the scrutiny on a team that already faced more intense analysis than most. It has been mentioned many times that one of Fred Vasseur’s biggest strengths has been his ability to block out the noise surrounding Ferrari and stop the team overreacting to either good or bad situations, keeping the Scuderia on a much more even keel. Well, the Ferrari team principal is going to need to lean on all of that and more after Sunday in Shanghai.

Qualifying on Saturday afternoon was a little disappointing after the pace shown in the previous two competitive sessions, but if Ferrari had retained the strong race performance from the Sprint then it would be in position to fight for a podium at least in the grand prix. With Hamilton passing Max Verstappen for fourth at Turn 1, and Charles Leclerc following him through, it all looked so good.

Even the contact between the two drivers that broke Leclerc’s front wing endplate did not appear to be a problem, as Hamilton avoided a puncture and Leclerc still displayed strong pace with a front wing that structurally was remaining intact.

Teams are allowed to replace obviously damaged parts for post-race weight checks, and Ferrari was able to fit a replacement front wing that the FIA stated was 0.2kg heavier than the one that had raced, yet that still wasn’t enough to avoid later controversy.

After Hamilton’s win on Saturday, the mood surrounding Ferrari had been much more buoyant. It looked like it had quickly bounced back from Melbourne and found a direction with its new car, one that would help Hamilton produce strong performances to rival Leclerc.

Yet there appeared to still be plenty to work on even during the race, as multiple radio messages were played out that suggested the two drivers were not totally satisfied with the information they were receiving. If anything, it was Leclerc who appeared the more frustrated, stating he was being given repetitive feedback and retaining the hint of sarcasm that was on display in Australia.

The race was soon slipping away from Ferrari after that strong start. It couldn’t quite put pressure on George Russell ahead, and Hamilton was struggling compared to the Sprint, telling the team he was willing for it to try something different as Leclerc shadowed him closely, and eventually letting his teammate through at Turn 1.

Leclerc’s initial burst of pace once clear of Hamilton soon faded away, and both were powerless to resist Verstappen’s recovery after an anonymous first stint for the Red Bull driver. Hamilton’s two-stop was a gamble worth taking as it ultimately cost him nothing, and the Ferrari was ultimately the fourth-fastest car on the day.

Yet even the disappointment of not having an answer to McLaren, Russell or Verstappen wasn’t going to prove to be enough misery for the Scuderia, as it found two different ways of tripping itself up even further.

In reality, one of those ways had been found prior to the race, with setup to blame for Hamilton’s rearward skid block wearing below the minimum allowed 9mm. A Sprint weekend does put more pressure on teams to get a setup right within smaller windows, but the current format allows lessons to be learned from the race situation on Saturday and changes made as parc ferme re-opens ahead of qualifying.

That wasn’t the case in 2023, when both Hamilton — then at Mercedes — and Leclerc were excluded from the United States Grand Prix, again for plank wear. And when a team has gone through that situation once, it really should have put steps in place to avoid a repeat.

For Leclerc, there are multiple potential reasons why his car was underweight, but much like Russell at Spa-Francorchamps last year, an unexpected one-stop strategy could play a role. Multiple cars pulled off such a strategy, and Leclerc was not alone in being underweight, with Pierre Gasly also disqualified.

Gasly ran the longest stint of anybody to the end of the race with 46 laps on his hard tires, while Leclerc stopped five laps later so had 41 on his. Yet none of the rest of the top five had any weight issues, despite Verstappen, Russell and Oscar Piastri running more laps than Leclerc, and Lando Norris the same number.

Russell’s situation provided all of the teams with a clear warning of a potential side effect of such a strategy. One that has been performing as well as Ferrari in recent years should really have heeded that incident and learned from it, but instead it leaves Shanghai with a double disqualification and stays behind Williams in the constructors’ championship.

“Charles was on a one-stop strategy today and this meant his tire wear was very high, causing the car to be underweight,” a team statement admitted. “With regard to Lewis’ skid wear, we misjudged the consumption by a small margin. There was no intention to gain any advantage.

“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. Clearly it’s not the way we wanted to end our Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves, nor for our fans whose support for us is unwavering.”

Early days they might be, but Ferrari has now had multiple different issues over the opening two rounds and they are proving extremely costly. Giving McLaren a 61-point head start in the constructors’ championship, and two fewer races to claw it back across, is not the ideal way to kick-off a season if you want to win titles.

Hamilton was quick — and right — to call out critics for being too quick to judge Ferrari after just one race weekend, using the backdrop of his win in the Sprint to point out it should also not get carried away by one good result. But the opening two rounds have been more reminiscent of the Ferrari prior to Vasseur’s arrival, and the team seems to be getting in its own way a little.

“I don’t feel the pressure,” Hamilton said on Saturday. “I know the Tifosi, I know the fans, I know the team wants to win, and I know it means everything to them. But Rome wasn’t built in one day — one step at a time. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We cannot.

“We’ve got to continue to push, we’ve got to be diligent and just remain focused, stay calm. Most importantly stay calm because these moments get us all excited … It’s a long, long way. It’s a marathon not a sprint, so we’ve just got to take our time.”

But the likes of McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull will not give the team time to get things right. And Ferrari was meant to be set up to win this year, with even Leclerc admitting during pre-season testing that he felt Hamilton had arrived at the right point in the team’s journey.

The positive momentum from Hamilton’s arrival appears to have disappeared already, and the Sprint win was certainly overshadowed come Sunday evening in China. Vasseur will have been ready for such scrutiny this season, but probably didn’t foresee Ferrari making life so hard for itself.

I wrote on Friday that Hamilton had flipped the script as Ferrari enjoyed a more positive outlook, but the team’s errors flipped it back on Sunday. Over the next few weeks, Vasseur needs to make sure everyone is on the same page.

The Chinese Grand Prix weekend has been a brilliant example of just how competitive this season could prove to be, if we look at the two grids that have been set during the Sprint event.

On Friday, the front row consisted of a Ferrari (Lewis Hamilton) and a Red Bull (Max Verstappen), and the pair would go on to finish first and third respectively in the Sprint.

Come Saturday afternoon, it was two totally different teams securing the top two positions with McLaren (Oscar Piastri) on pole and Mercedes (George Russell) in second.

And for Piastri, the timing couldn’t have been much better. It was his first grand prix pole position, having only previously set the fastest time in a Sprint qualifying session, and it gives him a great chance at bouncing back from his disappointment from Melbourne.

Leaving his home race, where the remarkable record of no Australian having secured a podium finish — let alone a win — continued, Piastri was some 23 points adrift of teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ championship. Early days it may be, but that was a big buffer for Norris to open up over what could well be his biggest title rival.

Although the two McLaren drivers are expected to take points off each other, the likelihood is there will be an earlier call made to back one over the other this season, should there be any other contenders. So establishing a lead early on could be particularly important, and Piastri took the first steps to reducing that with his second place in the Sprint.

Now 17 points back, Piastri then carried that momentum into qualifying, where he ticked off a first that has been a long time coming, even if it didn’t feel like a glaring omission from his résumé given his performances in Sprint qualifying in the past.

“It means a lot,” Piastri said. “I’ve been close a few times now and it’s nice to finally have my first pole. I’ve had a couple of Sprint poles, but to have the first grand prix pole means a bit more. So yeah, pretty pumped.

“I’ve worked hard for it and I feel like the start of the season has been strong. Obviously the result in Melbourne was a shame, but I feel like I’ve been doing a good job otherwise and just happy to have ended up on pole.”

It’s hard to argue against Piastri’s point. He was bettered by Norris in qualifying in Australia but was a true threat for victory until both went off track on slick tires as rain fell, and he described it as his only mistake of the weekend, but one that had a much bigger impact than his teammate’s.

Now he has outqualified Norris in both sessions in China, while he also did a solid job to clear Verstappen and pick up seven of the maximum eight points on offer in the Sprint.

Piastri’s pole position is all the more crucial given the importance of track position in Shanghai — as was evidenced by Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Sprint and how he could pull away from the McLaren in the closing stages. Being behind Verstappen and using more of his tires to get past the Red Bull hurt Piastri that little bit more and left him with little usable rubber in the final laps.

“I think just making sure your tires survive is the biggest thing,” Piastri said. “I think we saw this morning that those that could… I would say look after their tires, but that wasn’t even really true — the people that could manage the best one way or another were the quickest.

“For my own Sprint I felt like I did a reasonable job, it was just difficult trying to get past Max. But I think we saw with Lewis being out in front all morning, it probably helped him in the long run.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting race. It’s the most deg we’ve probably seen and the most graining we’ve seen in a long time. So it’ll be interesting to see if it stays the same tomorrow.”

Piastri faces multiple threats, including from Russell and Verstappen, and we’ll get stuck into how the season is shaping up for Verstappen to do something particularly special after this weekend. But perhaps the biggest challenge is likely to come from his teammate, who appreciates just how hard it is for McLaren to exploit its obvious pace with regularity.

“We’ve said it many times — it’s definitely the quickest car, but it’s still tricky to drive,” Norris said. “We can easily do good sectors every now and then but putting a lap together — like Oscar said, he was two-tenths down and then he’s kind of going for it and it stuck. But it seems just tricky to understand how to do it consistently enough.

“When you do that kind of good job, then it can easily be the quickest car. So a couple of things [to work on] and just more my driving — that rhythm of knowing exactly what to do where, how much. Also, if you push a bit too much, the tires can bite quite quickly too.

“So. many different things, but it’s also just that Oscar’s done a good job and I’ve not done a perfect job. It’s tight, so I just paid the price for not doing well enough.”

All of those factors show where the McLaren drivers are being tested, but if he can tame them then Piastri will have a golden opportunity to bounce back from his Melbourne disappointment in style, provided he can retain his advantage off the line.

And yet, either Verstappen (two points adrift of Norris) or Russell (six points back) could realistically end up leading the championship after this weekend, even with a Piastri victory. The McLaren driver battle is far from the only one to look out for.