Colapinto should be smart and stay as far away as possible from that seat!!!

but is the change confirmed or just speculation?

It's about as "official" as it could be without being strictly official, like when Lawson replaced Ricciardo for the last 6 races last season.

I'm sure the fact the next race is in Japan has NOTHING to do with the speed of the switch.

Also Colapinto will almost certainly replace Doohan at Alpine sometime this season imo.

Rumours suggest that Honda have offered somewhere around £10M to get Tsunoda in the seat by the next race and Red Bull like the sound of that.

When Tsunoda tested last year's car at Abu Dhabi in December, he said he liked the way it handled and this may be his only shot to try a Red Bull in competition so it could well be very interesting. I expect he'd have a great race in the RB anyway but you wouldn't blame him for jumping at this opportunity.

That is brutal in regards to Lawson for Red Bull. What if Tsunoda had similar performances in the next two races, would they swap seats again??

Lawson's stint must go down as the shortest ever full time driver stints for an F1 team excluding one-off appearances or the ill-fated Lola team in 1997.

I would think that Tsunoda should have had the seat originally to beginning with.

This is pretty awful driver management for both Lawson and Tsunoda.

If Tsunoda has 2 bad performances, I think they may as well just run one car for the rest of the season to avoid the continual headaches 😄

Now if Verstappen were to have 2 bad performances........

Absolute sod all, would happen.

It feels like Lawson is rated more highly by Red Bull and it's almost protection to but him in VCARB again if they know this car is so bad for him.

As for Tsunoda, realistically this is the only chance he's ever going to get to move to a 'top' car (can't see the other three having vacancies for 2+ years and doubt they'd consider him anyway) and if it goes badly for him we're at the point where it isn't actually a hindrance for future career - literally everyone fails eventually in that car and plenty do just fine afterwards.

Do they? Gasly is stuck in the worst car, can't see Albon ever getting a top seat again and Perez is out of the sport completely.

isn't Perez coming back with Cadillac as 1st pilot?

That's news to me if so^ anyway Cadillac are a complete unknown at this point, they could be comfortably slowest car on the grid next year.

Well I'd suggest careers with significant length whilst having 100% record over their teammates since leaving is just fine personally, it'll be nice to see Albon in a more competitive car which Williams have hopefully given this season. As for not being in a top seat, they're just really difficult to come by, particularly in the driver-academisation era - Hamilton, Russell and Antonelli have taken the only three opportunities which have been available at Ferrari and Mercedes (not that Ferrari's vacancy was really an 'opportunity'). As for Perez, who knows... by the time he was out the entire grid was pretty much filled so hard to judge too much just yet, but does feel like the new team is his only realistic chance, and he was very different to every other driver anyway - his Red Bull stint was seasons 11-14 of his career.

Edited March 26Mar 26 by RabbitFurCoat

Can't see Cadillac going with Perez as their driver for next year.

there was an article about Perez and Cadillac on the Spanish press today

and was saying Perez is in the "pole position" to get the job

but maybe it's just speculation

Tsunoda-Lawson switch confirmed!

On 26/03/2025 at 20:06, Bjork said:

there was an article about Perez and Cadillac on the Spanish press today

and was saying Perez is in the "pole position" to get the job

but maybe it's just speculation

My mistake, I hadn't read that article about Perez and Cadillac when I posted about I couldn't see Cadillac going as with Perez as their driver for next year.

Quote me on this people, if this does happen.

BBC Sport

Japanese Grand Prix: Max Verstappen says his social media...

Max Verstappen says it "was not a mistake" that he liked a comment on social media criticising Red Bull's decision to demote Liam Lawson.

So Max doesn’t agree with the decision either

Doohan had a terrible accident, quite inexplicable too, maybe Colapinto will have his chance

Well I read somewhere that Colapinto isn't in Japan this weekend, Ryo Hirakawa is the reserve driver and participated in FP1. So if Doohan can't drive they'll give it to Hirakawa. Such a coincidence eh...

Gotta say that forgetting to close your DRS when entering a high speed corner is beyond stupid