The data that shows how Liam Lawson struggled alongside Max Verstappen

Earlier this week, Red Bull announced the monumental decision to carry out a driver swap between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Lawson struggled massively during the opening two rounds of the year alongside Max Verstappen.

But it's important to recognise that a driver's full potential with any car can't be determined after just two race weekends. 

Therefore it is certainly not the intention to pass judgment on Lawson as a driver based on the data. However, the fact is that the New Zealander had no answers on how to extract pace from the car in Australia and China.

Red Bull explained it had little faith in Lawson being able to turn the tide and that the second driver needed to take points for the constructors' championship. 

Looking at the data, Lawson was nowhere near the points. It started in Australia, where Lawson was also hampered by a turbo problem in the third free practice session. 

He had also never driven on the circuit before, which ultimately led him to finishing 19th in qualifying. Accepting the fact that the track evolved during the qualifying session and the times got faster, Lawson was a whopping 1.6 seconds slower than Verstappen's fastest time in Q3.

At Red Bull, however, it has long held the goal of having its second driver roughly three-tenths adrift of Verstappen in qualifying and the race. If Lawson had managed that, he would have just been in Q3 and had the prospect of a points finish.

The rain-affected race, however, was even more shocking for Lawson. On a wet track, the differences between them are always going to be greater, but Lawson didn't get beyond 18th place in terms of average speed. 

He was, on average, 2.7 seconds per lap slower than Verstappen, keeping only the very slow Haas drivers behind him. 

View the sector times from qualifying and the average times from the race in Australia below. The article continues after that.

China proves to be the final straw

Lawson had a chance to bounce back and prove a point in China, but he was faced with the immediate obstacle of navigating a sprint weekend. It was also a brand new circuit for him, but it was an excuse that would not fly with Christian Horner and Helmut Marko.

Improvement was necessary, but the weekend turned out to be another disappointment for Lawson.

He drove the slowest time in both sprint qualifying and regular qualifying, trailing Verstappen by 1.9 and 1.4 seconds respectively. 

As was the case at the round prior from Australia, the track improved rapidly throughout the session, but Lawson was eight-tenths slower than Verstappen in SQ1 as well, for example. The difference was really far too great.

In the grand prix, things did not go well. Lawson started from pit lane on Sunday and although he drove average lap times that were good for ninth place, his performance was again secretly underwhelming. 

Lawson's lapse is much greater than his closest “competitors” and he is still slower than Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon with an extra pit stop. In terms of lap times, Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar also fluctuate much less, despite making two pit stops just like Lawson. And don't forget that Verstappen was able to improve late on with the hard tyre.

Based on the data, Red Bull had plenty of reasons to send Lawson back to Racing Bulls. There's a fair argument to be made that Lawson deserved more time to get used to the car.

But it can't be ignored that Lawson's performance against Verstappen was a new low. Now it's up to Tsunoda to step up where so many others have failed in the past.

Check out the sector times from sprint qualifying and race pace at the Chinese Grand Prix below.