Red Bull alarm bells ringing after latest disaster: 'It can't continue like this'

As much as Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko might want to believe it, racing drivers are not lightbulbs and cannot be swapped out when one is broken and stops working. 

If not Daniel Ricciardo, then who? If not Pierre Gasly, then who? If not Alex Albon, then who? If not Sergio Perez, then who?

At the moment, it is Liam Lawson. The Kiwi was promoted to replace the axed Perez following his horrendous performances in 2024 cost Red Bull the defence of its constructors' championship. 

The team only finished 66 points behind McLaren in the final standings, but the fact Perez scored a paltry 49 points over the final 18 races of the 24-grand prix campaign proved to be the final nail in his coffin. The problem was clear - get rid of the driver not performing, bring in the next on the production line and hope for a different result. 

It is just a matter of fact that Verstappen is a team-mate crusher. Except for Carlos Sainz in their rookie year of 2015, Verstappen has mentally destroyed every team-mate he has had. 

Ricciardo was run out of town, while Gasly spent months chasing his own tail, struggling to come to terms with not being on the pace. Albon lost his spark after a bright start. Perez held on for four seasons, but eventually against the Dutch machine, he was worn down. 

If a driver with 281 starts can be affected in such a manner, to put a driver with just 11 to his name in that position and expect a different result means Red Bull is away dreaming with the fairies.

At its basic point, Lawson has been set up to fail. He is a driver still learning his craft, still understanding how to master the tyres - something even the likes of Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso sometimes cannot do. Even worse for Red Bull in its decision-making, Lawson is still learning the tracks. 

He had never driven at Melbourne's Albert Park for the season-opener, nor at China's Shanghai, where he qualified last on merit for both the sprint and grand prix. 

In the breakdown of their fastest laps, Lawson was 0.6s behind Verstappen through Sector 1; 0.3s in Sector 2, and a further 0.5s in the final segment of the lap.

He openly conceded his performance "was not good enough" and refused to make excuses. His future, though, is already being called into question. 

Isack Hadjar is in the same boat in never having been to Shanghai in an F1 car, and of course, he is yet to start a grand prix after crashing on the formation lap in Australia last week. Lawson has just 12 to his name. 

Hadjar, though, took his Racing Bulls machine to seventh on the grid, 0.058s from usurping Charles Leclerc to start alongside Hamilton on the third row. Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was a couple of tenths back, but still 11 places higher than Lawson on the grid.

That, perhaps understandably, prompted questions to Marko about the future of the driver he promoted to the senior team after not even two full grand prix weekends this term. 

When asked a direct question about replacing Lawson, the veteran Austrian refused to dismiss the possibility.

"Formula 1 is a competitive sport and in the end, that [performance] is what counts," he told Sky DE. "This [Lawson's poor performances] is not what we imagined, but we will analyse it at leisure."

In an additional interview with Motorsport Magazin, Marko added: "The qualifying was not impressive here. It cannot continue like this. We will analyse it calmly and then make the right decisions."

Despite what Red Bull claims, its car is designed around the ultra-sharp on-the-nose set-up Verstappen demands, allowing him to extract performances seemingly beyond its capability.

For a driver still learning his craft as Lawson is, being handed such a car was always going to prove difficult. Even four-time champion Verstappen has claimed the Racing Bulls car is easier to drive than his RB21.

Now Red Bull has made its Lawson decision and put him into this hostile environment, it must own it and stick with him. 

To axe or even consider demoting Lawson based on two circuits he has never been to before at the start of a tricky run of races would be an indictment of the Red Bull driver policy since Verstappen stepped up in 2016.

Fortunately for Lawson, F1 returns to a track he has raced at before next time out, with the Japanese GP at Suzuka. It is, however, far from what would be described as an easy track, before the Bahrain GP and then Saudi Arabia, with the Jeddah venue another Lawson has never raced at in F1.

The same goes for the sprint weekend in Miami and the return to Europe at Imola and Monaco. Yes, he has never raced in F1 in Spain, but drivers could probably drive Barcelona with their eyes closed. Before you know it, a third of the season is over. 

Lawson must be given at least the full season alongside Verstappen, and if the constructors' championship is lost again, then so be it.