Clipping Red Bull’s wings

Zafir Nagji, Sports Editor | 

Formula One is back and two races into the 2025 season, fans have been treated to a healthy dose of captivating action. From the numerous crashes at the wet and wild Australian Grand Prix to Ferrari’s double disqualification at the gruelling Chinese Grand Prix and every McLaren victory in between, 2025 is set to be the most entertaining season of the modern ground effect era, which began in 2022. However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing as Red Bull Racing, who have been a polarizing but dominant force of this era, have stirred up yet another controversy regarding their driver lineup for 2025.

The beginning of the end

This year is the final season of the 2022 regulation changes, which made the cars extremely aerodynamically complex, blisteringly fast, and tricky to drive. With turbocharged six-cylinder motors assisted by hybrid-electric systems, these cars produce upwards of 1000 combined horsepower while weighing as little as 798 kilograms, or half the weight of a modern compact consumer vehicle. 

Red Bull Racing was well ahead of the curve in the early parts of this era and enjoyed a series of successful seasons, winning two Constructors’ Championships and three Drivers’ Championships behind the excellent driving of Max Verstappen. In 2024, though, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG, and Ferrari all made significant strides, with McLaren making an incredible comeback to win the 2024 Constructors’ Championship thanks to their remarkable car development and Red Bull Racing’s inherent vehicular flaws.

This season, McLaren has established itself as a comfortable favourite, with Lando Norris winning from pole position at the season opener in Australia, which saw five drivers crash in the rainy conditions. Oscar Piastri then gave the Papayas another race win the following week in China, with Norris finishing in second place to give McLaren a commanding lead in the Constructors’ Championship. Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG, and Red Bull Racing are closely following behind, with each track exposing the strengths and weaknesses of their cars.

In the midfield, Williams have established themselves as the “best of the rest,” with experienced pilots Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz Jr. scoring a combined 17 points in two races to tie Ferrari for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Haas are not far behind with 14 points, led by French racing veteran Esteban Ocon and Ferrari rookie Oliver Bearman, while Aston Martin has been disappointing as the sport’s longest-tenured driver, Fernando Alonso, has failed to score points in either of the first two weekends.

Leading the back of the grid is Kick Sauber Ferrari, who scored six points in their final season before transitioning into their new ownership under Audi next year. Racing Bulls are close behind them with three points and have been rumoured to have an easier car to drive than their parent team, Red Bull Racing. The only scoreless team this season is Alpine Renault, who are in the process of switching to Mercedes-AMG engines after this season.

Trouble in paradise

One unfortunate but common theme in recent seasons has been the controversies surrounding the Red Bull Racing team. The team exceeded the budget cap in 2021, senior advisor Helmut Marko made repeated racist comments towards Sergio Pérez through 2022-23, and team principal Christian Horner was accused of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct in 2024. 

However, despite all of the noise surrounding the Austrian outfit, Red Bull Racing has been the best team on the track for most of this era. This is thanks to the dominant driving of Verstappen, who scored more points individually in 2023 (575) than Mercedes-AMG (409), who finished second in the Constructors’ Championship. In 2024, though, Verstappen could not bring his team a third consecutive championship, but still took home a Drivers’ Championship victory despite stiff competition from McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes-AMG. 

Verstappen’s ex-teammate, Pérez, made several comments throughout his four-year tenure with the team regarding the car’s lack of balance, harsh ride quality, and tight operating window, but was key in securing victories with his defensive driving style and remarkable tire management skills. 

Rumours surrounding Red Bull’s favouritism of Verstappen’s unique driving style when it came to developing and setting up the car constantly circulated as Pérez’s performances became worse over the years. After a disappointing season in 2024, Pérez was relieved of his duties and did not receive a race seat on any team for 2025.

Meanwhile, Red Bull Racing’s junior team, Racing Bulls, had a tumultuous 2024, starting the season with Japanese wheelman Yuki Tsunoda and fan-favourite Daniel Ricciardo. However, the Australian driver struggled to extract maximal performance out of the car all year and was let go after the Singapore Grand Prix in favour of reserve driver Liam Lawson, who scored four points in six races to close out the year. Tsunoda finished the year in great form, scoring 30 of his team’s 46 points to secure 12th place in the Drivers’ Championship.

However, F1.com reported a stipulation in Lawson’s contract that had a major influence in Red Bull Racing’s decision-making process when it came to replacing Pérez.

“If Red Bull didn’t offer [Lawson] a race seat for next season (or find him a seat elsewhere)… then he would be released,” the report indicated.

So, under the guise of preventing Lawson from signing with a rival team, Red Bull fast-tracked Lawson onto the main team, signing the Kiwi driver to drive alongside Verstappen in the new RB21 racecar. 

Tsunoda was understandably hurt by this decision, having out-qualified Lawson in all six of their races together and waiting longer than any other driver in the history of Red Bull’s two decades in F1 to race for the senior team. Drivers like Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon were all promoted in less than two seasons with the junior team, but Tsunoda spent more than four full seasons there and saw the name of the Faenza-based team change three times (Scuderia AlphaTauri, Visa Cash App RB, Visa Cash App Racing Bulls).

In a vacuum, this seems like a sound business decision with little racial prejudice to make note of. However, Marko repeatedly made racist comments towards Pérez during his time on the team, blatantly stereotyping him and even misidentifying where the Mexican driver is from.

For example, after Pérez made a mistake at the 2022 French Grand Prix, Marko played on one of the most common stereotypes used against Mexican people.

“Maybe he drank tequila yesterday,” Marko said. “Checo was sleeping at the restart.”

Later in the season, just before the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, a drone and missile attack was carried out on Aramco’s Jeddah oil refinery. Many of the drivers were reasonably startled, but Marko found a way to defame Pérez once again.

“Max is a bit more relaxed about it,” Marko said. “Pérez is a little bit scared, but when you live in Mexico City there’s not much more security.”

Now on a racist roll, Marko didn’t hold back at that year’s German Grand Prix, seemingly forgetting where Pérez was from and insulting a new group instead.

“As a South American he generally has a lot of ups and downs,” Marko said.

He followed that up at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix, directly putting him down while comparing him to Red Bull’s white European drivers.

“It was certainly one of the better weekends, and we know he has issues in qualifying. He experiences fluctuations in form,” Marko said. “He’s South American, and his mental focus isn’t as consistent as it was with Max [Verstappen] or Sebastian [Vettel].”

Marko did issue an apology for wrongly attributing Pérez’s heritage and the FIA, motorsport’s governing body, issued a written warning towards him for his discriminatory remarks. The only black driver in F1’s 75-year history, Lewis Hamilton, felt the punishment didn’t fit the crime.

“I think this is not something that you just apologize [for] and it is all okay,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “I think there needs to be more done, so it is interesting they haven’t done so for this one… We still have a lot of work to do moving forwards to make sure that this is a more inclusive environment.”

Taking that into account, Red Bull Racing expediting their rookie driver into their most important seat instead of promoting their longest-tenured junior driver no longer seems like an unprejudiced decision. Even Tsunoda called the decision “weird,” having outperformed Lawson in equal machinery while putting together the best season of his career in 2024.

The (Yu)ki to success

The Honda-supported driver used the snub as motivation and qualified P5 for the Australian Grand Prix, ahead of superstar drivers in faster cars like Lewis Hamilton and Charles LeClerc’s Ferraris. A botched strategy call caused Tsunoda to finish the race outside of the points in P12, but that was still better than Lawson’s woeful weekend.

After qualifying P18, Lawson was forced to start from the pit lane, due to his team making alterations to the car in between qualifying and the race. He continued to disappoint in the race, crashing his RB21 on lap 47 and failing to finish his first race with his new team.

Tsunoda carried that momentum with him into the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, where he finished in P6 at the Sprint Race and qualified P9 for the actual race. However, Racing Bulls pulled another strategy error, forcing Tsunoda to pit twice while most other teams pitted just once and relegating him to a P16 finish. 

Lawson, meanwhile, finished the Sprint Race in P14 and set the slowest qualifying lap for the race. Once again, Red Bull altered his car before the race to try and help him extract the most performance during the race, but the Kiwi driver finished in P12 and claimed the setup changes “just didn’t work.” That P12 may seem better than Tsunoda’s P16, but then again, Lawson is in the superior car, one which Verstappen drove to P3 in Australia and P4 in China.

F1 media immediately churned out a series of dramatic headlines, ripping into Red Bull Racing for choosing Lawson over Tsunoda and rumouring that the team might swap the two drivers. On March 27, those rumours became true as the team announced Lawson would be demoted to the Racing Bulls team and Tsunoda would finally be given a seat at Red Bull Racing.

However, this now brings a separate set of issues on the matter. For one, Tsunoda has had no experience with the RB21, having been with Racing Bulls through pre-season testing and the first two race weekends. Even Verstappen acknowledged that the two teams have completely different cars, which means Tsunoda will have very little time to get accustomed to a brand new car—-one that is notoriously difficult to drive. 

He’s also being tasked with driving next to one of the sport’s most talented drivers, Verstappen, and every other driver in that seat has eventually succumbed to that pressure. Gasly, Albon, and Pérez all showed immense potential before joining Red Bull Racing but were forced to drive a car developed around Verstappen’s unique driving style. As a result, all three drivers ended their Red Bull tenures with plenty of crashes and disappointing results. 

Gasly and Albon both performed better in their following ventures, with the former joining Alpine and the latter joining Williams.

Gasly is Alpine’s only stabilizing force as they look to sign a new engine supply deal with Mercedes-AMG and develop rookie driver Jack Doohan. Albon has been quintessential in James Vowles’s complete revamping of the Williams F1 team, maximizing the car’s potential and bringing in valuable data for the engineers to use in development. 

Even though Pérez did not secure a 2025 race seat, rumours have indicated he may sign a deal with Cadillac, who will become the eleventh team on the grid from 2026 onwards.

However, Tsunoda is older and more experienced than Gasly and Albon were when they were given the same opportunity. He has also spent more time around the Red Bull family than Pérez, who did not come up through the junior team and was instead brought over from BWT Racing Point. If he can get acclimated with the unique driving dynamics of the RB21 over the practice portion of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, he could easily finish in the top 10 and score points at his home race. 

Plus, Tsunoda has always had the respect of his teammates, with Ricciardo, Gasly, Nyck de Vries, and Lawson all lauding him for his precision, pace and steady year-to-year development, so it would be unlikely for any tension to develop between him and Verstappen.

This transition will not be easy for Lawson, either, even though he’s stepping into a Racing Bulls car similar to the one he drove last season. Demoting Lawson was Red Bull Racing’s fastest driver change ever, so the New Zealander will now have to effectively save his F1 career at Racing Bulls. Plus, if Tsunoda performs well in his new role and Verstappen stays put at Red Bull Racing, Lawson won’t have a chance to earn his promotion back for the foreseeable future. 

Most of the other teams on the grid also seem comfortable with their driver lineups moving forward, assuming the sport’s oldest presences, Hamilton and Alonso, choose not to retire. As a result, Lawson’s chances of securing a quality non-Red Bull seat also seem slim, meaning he could end up on a low-midfield or even a back-marker team if he left the energy drink empire.

Tsunoda’s first weekend with Red Bull Racing will be at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit from April 3-5. He’ll have three practice sessions to get used to the RB21 before qualifying on April 4 and subsequently racing on April 5. Lawson, meanwhile, will begin his arduous climb back to the upper echelon of the sport as he attempts to redeem himself and prove he is worthy of a seat on the grid.