Not in 100 years: Former Racing Bulls boss savages Red Bull’s Lawson pick after ‘right call’ switch

Former Racing Bulls boss Franz Tost has savaged Red Bull Racing’s now reversed decision to pick Liam Lawson ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, saying the Kiwi would never be as fast as the promoted Japanese star.

Lawson was picked as Sergio Pérez’s replacement at the end of last season but was ousted from the team after only two grands prix, having failed to qualify higher than 18th in any session and having gone scoreless over both rounds.

The Kiwi was dumped back to Racing Bulls, with Tsunoda taking his place from this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

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Franz Tost managed the now Racing Bulls team — previously Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri — from its inception in 2006 until the end of 2023, overseeing the development of world champions Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen as well as race winner Daniel Ricciardo.

The last three years of his tenure included oversight of the beginning of Tsunoda’s career as well as Liam Lawson’s five-race stint replacing Ricciardo in 2023.

The Austrian said Tsunoda should have been the obvious choice for promotion last season given his speed and experience.

“I would have gone with Yuki Tsunoda from the start,” he told Austrian broadcaster ORF, per Autosport. “I said that already — I made it clear last autumn.

“Why? Yuki is much faster than Lawson. You could give Lawson 100 years and he still wouldn’t be as fast as Yuki.

“And Yuki is more experienced, so what’s the issue? It’s a very simple decision.

“It’s definitely a confirmation that the right call was made. Yuki has incredible natural speed — I’ve been saying that for years — now he just needs to put it all together properly.”

Tost has been a pivotal figure in the career of the Japanese star, who burst into F1 by scoring points on debut but lacked the discipline and focus to kick on from there in his first season.

He moved to Faenza, home town of the then AlphaTauri team, on Tost’s insistence, where the team boss whipped the self-described “lazy bastard” into shape away from the track and worked to smooth down his rough edges at the track.

Tost said there were still things Tsunoda has to work on to ensure his Red Bull Racing switch is a success, but he backed the 24-year-old to find his way.

“He’s still too emotional in the car at times, and maybe that was one of the reasons they didn’t pick him over Lawson in the first place,” he said.

“But in terms of raw pace, Yuki absolutely belongs among the best Formula 1 drivers, and if he can now translate that into consistency, perform in the races and keep his emotions more or less in check, then it’s going to be a very, very good season for Red Bull Racing and for Yuki Tsunoda.”

Tost was succeeded at the helm of the team by Laurent Mekies, who told media in Suzuka on that he considered Lawson and Tsunoda to be equal prospects for Red Bull Racing last year, revealing he had recommended both to team principal Christian Horner and Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko, who picked the Kiwi.

“As a team our first objective is competitiveness,” he said. “Our second objective is to grow young talents for the Red Bull family.

“Our job is to get to the end of the year, or sooner in some cases, and to put on the table one or two drivers which hopefully are of interest for our big brother.

“In the case of last season we felt that was the case with both drivers.

“That’s what we presented to Christian, to Helmut, and to the wider Red Bull family — two drivers that are, according to us, able to step up into the bigger team.”

But the French boss added that it was clear Tsunoda had made more progress during the off-season, with the rejection spurring him to new heights.

“Yuki made an incredible step last year compared to his previous seasons,” he said. “We really felt that if he was going to make another step in 2025, we would be talking about a very serious level, and that’s exactly what he has done, so credit to him.

“He also had the bad news at the end of last season. He went to Japan. He came back in very strong spirit. As soon as he joined us back in Faenza and in Milton Keynes in January he worked extremely hard.

“The spirit was there, the attention to all the details was there.

“When he jumped in the car in Bahrain [testing], he showed pretty much straight away to us that he had made another step.”

Mekies also defended Lawson’s ability after his difficult first two races and brutal demotion.

“We are all very conscious that his talent is there and it’s about finding the right conditions to extract it back out of him,” he said. “With high confidence we think that his talent did not disappear, and we start back these adventures where we left it last year.”