A fast car is always difficult to drive

Patience is a virtue, but who has got the time? Not Liam Lawson, who suffered another disastrous qualifying session in which he finished last while team-mate Max Verstappen extracted fourth out of the difficult-to-handle Red Bull.

Lawson knows this full well, being acutely aware of the chequered history of Red Bull’s second seat. “With time it’ll come, but I just don’t have time,” he said in the post-qualifying media scrum. When Autosport put Lawson’s quote to Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, the Austrian ominously said: “He’s right.

“It was disappointing, and we have to go through and analyse everything, and then we see. It’s all depending on performance, and he didn’t deliver.”

Verstappen offered support for the New Zealander, saying he is convinced Lawson would be quicker in the Racing Bulls than in the Red Bull given how hard the RB21 is to drive.

“If you looked at Liam at Racing Bulls, actually he was quite similar with Yuki,” said Verstappen. “There was not a whole lot of difference between them, I thought. Otherwise, of course, the team wouldn’t make that choice to put Liam in. And now suddenly that gap is very big, and they are also very close to me, so that tells you something. When I talk to Liam, the Racing Bulls car is definitely easier to drive than our car.”

Marko didn’t necessarily find that to be a valid excuse: “Yeah, but in the end a very fast car is always difficult to drive.”

But, while Red Bull’s tough-love, sink-or-swim approach can be questioned, given it has struggled to find a compatible team-mate for the second seat thus far, Tsunoda’s impressive performances for Racing Bulls may yet force the parent team into another driver change down the road after the Japanese driver was overlooked again for 2025.

“Yuki Tsunoda, [in] the first race and the sprint race, was competitive – no mistakes,” Marko acknowledged. “But even more impressive was Hadjar at his second race. He didn’t know the circuit here and he’s like seventh, so that’s even more impressive. It shows that the junior programme is working, and also that Racing Bulls made a car which is competitive and obviously easier to drive.”

Asked if Tsunoda can continue to be ignored if the current trends persist, he replied: “Let’s discuss when it happens. Yuki is driving for his future. That’s what matters, and he’s now doing very well.”