Ex-Red Bull junior Alguersuari sympathises with Lawson

Former Red Bull junior driver and Toro Rosso racer Jaime Alguersuari has shown support for Liam Lawson following the announcement that he will be replaced at Red Bull Racing by Yuki Tsunoda from the Japanese Grand Prix – saying the New Zealander’s performance was “not as bad as it looks”.

Lawson earned promotion to Red Bull for 2025 after impressing at their sister outfit, Racing Bulls (formerly AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso), but his dream opportunity soon turned into a nightmare via challenging back-to-back weekends in Australia and China.

With Lawson suffering a Q1 exit and then crashing out of the season opener, and qualifying last for both the Sprint and Grand Prix a week later, Red Bull chiefs have made the swift call to put Tsunoda in his place at Suzuka.

It is the shortest stint any fully-fledged Red Bull driver has experienced, one Grand Prix fewer than Robert Doornbos at the tail-end of the 2006 season, and Alguersuari feels Lawson deserved some more weekends to prove himself.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: Liam Lawson of New Zealand and Oracle Red Bull Racing looks on during — Lawson has lost his seat at the senior Red Bull team after just two Grand Prix weekends

“Liam is new, he didn’t know the car, he didn’t know the team, he didn’t know the tracks, so you need to give him a little bit of time,” Alguersuari told F1.com, when asked for his reaction to Red Bull’s latest driver decision.

“F1 now is about very small details. [For example], you have to get the tyres into the operating window, otherwise you just don’t have the grip, and you can bury four or five-tenths so easily. If you check Liam’s onboards in Australia and China, you can see that he was struggling for grip everywhere.

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“Liam is not as bad as he looks. You could expect that he was going to struggle at the beginning of the season, and he wouldn’t have been as bad as the season went by. You can’t be a hero and then [become] the worst driver in one or two races.”

Alguersuari, who made his F1 debut as a Red Bull-backed teenager in 2009, spending two-and-a-half seasons at Toro Rosso, went on to share his thoughts about where things went wrong for Lawson – highlighting two key points.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull — Alguersuari pointed to Verstappen’s brilliance when assessing Lawson’s situation

One of those is the outright speed of reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, and the other is the Dutchman’s ability to drive through car problems that Red Bull openly admitted plagued their 2024 challenger – and have yet to be fully resolved on the 2025-spec RB21.

“Across 24 races, nobody is going to go faster than Max in that team,” Alguersuari commented. “He’s probably the best driver who has ever raced in F1. His ability to drive an understeering car, an oversteering car, is in another dimension – he’s ahead of everyone.

“There’s a lot of rumours saying the car is built for Max, but the car is built to be the quickest car possible. You have a driving style, and Max is aggressive and likes a pointy car, because a pointy car is always the fastest car. Definitely, you don’t want an understeering car, because that’s a slower car.

“Max understands and knows very well how to set up that car to fit his driving style, and whoever you put in the other car is lost, because they can’t drive this car with the same set up as Max – they struggle with too much grip in the front. Then, if you remove that front grip, you’re slower, because there’s too much understeer.

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“It’s not just about going out on track and driving your best, it’s about understanding how to drive your best, and that’s what I think is happening to whoever is driving that second Red Bull car.”

Lawson now faces the mental challenge of taking a step back to try and move forward again, slotting in alongside highly rated rookie Isack Hadjar at the Racing Bulls outfit he previously contested 11 races with.

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In team boss Christian Horner’s words, “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”, returning him to “an environment and a team he knows very well”.

After losing his Toro Rosso drive – and place within the Red Bull family – at the end of 2011, Alguersuari shared some words of advice for the 23-year-old moving forward.

“It takes me back to my memories,” Alguersuari added. “At the end of the day, F1 has become so psychological. Bouncing back from that is just about strengthening your head, understanding your positives, your ups, and being super optimistic. You need to understand that you were not a bad driver before.

Alguersuari raced for Red Bull’s sister team, Toro Rosso, from mid-2009 to the end of 2011

“You are who you are, you’re developing your career in F1, and there’s much more to see and to come from you. You have to try to remember what you’ve learned in the past, your first races in F1, and try to execute to the maximum level that you’ve done so far.

“I think for Liam now, it comes to a new scenario where he just needs to feel comfort inside the car again, work with the engineers, work with the team, [find] the pace he was missing and try to get there step by step.”

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In Lawson’s place comes Tsunoda, who had just started his fifth season with Red Bull’s sister team and impressed many with his performances in Melbourne and Shanghai – despite Racing Bulls’ strategy calls backfiring.

So, what are the chances of the Japanese driver – one year older than Lawson – avoiding the same fate as the man he is replacing, and the likes of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon before them?

“I think Yuki has nothing to lose,” Alguersuari stated. “The benchmark of doing a better job is quite easy for him, in a way that nobody is really expecting that much from him.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: Yuki Tsunoda of Japan and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls prepares to drive — Tsunoda finally gets his chance at Red Bull from the Japanese GP – but how will he fare?

“I remember when he debuted in F1, everyone was questioning him, then he did a great job. It happened to me when I entered F1, everyone was questioning it and saying, ‘This is not a racing school, he should have more experience.’

“Yuki got better step by step and now he’s a very solid driver, getting the maximum out of his car. Last year, he did a great test for Red Bull in Abu Dhabi, and they didn’t give him the seat. Now it’s switched and I would say, if I were him, knowing that probably he is in his prime… I wouldn’t feel like there’s so much pressure on me.

“It’s Yuki’s home Grand Prix, he knows very well the track, he’s coming from very solid, consistent races, with good performances. He’s very motivated to step into the big team, so I think it’s going to go well for him, honestly.

“I would be surprised if he is much slower than Max. I think he’ll be slower, but I don’t think he’ll be more than half a second, six-tenths slower. Making a better job of what Liam did in the first two races is something quite achievable, even though I don’t think it’s fair on Liam [to be dropped].

“To keep that Red Bull seat for a long time? I don’t know. You never know with Red Bull. At least he’s in the best situation possible of any of their junior drivers [in recent times], I would say.”