Red Bull to crunch numbers amid Lawson/Tsunoda switch talk

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner might not be aware of it, but he was channelling his inner William Edwards Deming as he discussed Liam Lawson’s future following another disappointing outing at the Chinese Grand Prix.

 “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion,” the American statistician and business theorist once said – and now Horner is seemingly hanging Lawson’s position within the team on the same principle.

Having qualified 18th in Australia last weekend, Lawson was plum last in Shanghai qualifying for both the sprint race and the grand prix.

He has started both of his grands prix for Red Bull to date from the pitlane, the New Zealander crashing out in tricky conditions in Melbourne and finishing 12th in China, benefitting from other cars having issues as well as a trio of disqualifications further up the field.

Autosport reported ahead of the second race of the season that Lawson’s place at the senior Red Bull outfit was already coming under pressure from Yuki Tsunoda, who was left at Racing Bulls after the decision was taken to promote Lawson ahead of him.

“I think Liam’s had a tough couple of races, a tough weekend here,” Horner said after the Chinese Grand Prix. “We elected to take him off the grid out of parc ferme to do a significant set-up change and so we’ve managed to get 56 laps of reasonable data from that.

“Obviously we’ll take that away, we’ll have a good look at it and as a group we’ll do our best to support him.

“We’ll just continue to evaluate it. We’ll take away a stack of data to go and have a look at. That’s what we’ll do. Obviously, there’s 400 engineers in our team that are all trawling through the 600 sensors that are on the car. There’s an awful lot of information that we have.

“I think there’s so much info, how he’s adapted driving the car, what he’s getting from the car, what can we do to help, where are his major issues, what’s causing inconsistency, all of those issues.”

Horner, while refusing to comment on speculation linking Tsunoda with a move to Red Bull ahead of his home race in Japan in a fortnight, also failed to shoot down any suggestion a switch could take place.

“There’s always going to be speculation in the paddock. As I say, we’ve only just finished the race here. We’ll take away the info and have a good look at it,” he said.

“There’s nothing specific that’s been set up. I think everything is purely speculative at the moment. I think Liam still has got potential. We’re just not realising that at the moment.

“I’m not even going to comment on a change, because that would be your first headline. As I say, we’re two races into this championship. We have a sample of two.

“We have quite a bit of information. We’re going to go away and have a good look at it, and work with Liam and do the best that we can for him.

Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“I think the problem for him is he’s had a couple of really tough weekends. He’s got all the media on his back, a whole bunch. The pressure just naturally grows in this business, and I feel very sorry for him. You can see it’s very tough on him at the moment.

“I think he’s a young guy. We’ve got a duty to look after him and we’re going to do the best that we can to support him. And, yes, Liam’s still a very capable driver. We know that. We’re just not seeing it for whatever reason. We’re not seeing him able to deliver that at the moment.”