Red Bull chaos complete? Verstappen wanted to keep Lawson at Red Bull

25 March at 20:43

Ludo van Denderen

The chaos at Red Bull Racing seems complete, but is it? Despite Max Verstappen's request to keep Liam Lawson as his teammate, the Austrian team has decided to replace the New Zealander with Yuki Tsunoda with immediate effect.

With Verstappen, this decision is not exactly falling well. Like a true leader of the team, GPBlog understands the Dutchman indicated to Red Bull management this week that Lawson should stay in place, but the opinion of the four-time world champion was not listened to. Completely against his wishes, team boss Christian Horner and external advisor Helmut Marko continued what had been set in motion after the Chinese Grand Prix: Sending Lawson back to Racing Bulls.

Verstappen is looking on in amazement at how the team is currently being run. So instead of addressing the underlying problem of Lawson's poor performance - namely, structurally improving the car - they chose to victimise the driver.

The leadership's failure to look in the mirror and question its own performance is causing dissatisfaction; Horner keeps saving his own skin while Marko is currently making decisions based on emotions.

What does this mean for Verstappen's future?

The question is what this internal hassle all means for the marriage between Verstappen and Red Bull. The quality of the RB21 had already caused annoyance for Verstappen and there are doubts whether Red Bull can catch back up with McLaren at all, and now comes the change from Lawson to Tsunoda, which is not wanted by Verstappen.

The next few weeks are therefore going to be decisive for the future of Red Bull and thus Verstappen at the team. Mercedes and Aston Martin are mentioned as teams keen to attract him and if the situation does not improve or becomes even more dire, there may well come a time when Verstappen decides to indeed look elsewhere for 2026 and beyond - if he hasn't already...