Red Bull's decision to swap Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda after just two race weekends is a drastic measure it feels is needed to turn around its season and troubled 2025 Formula 1 car.
Lawson has been sent back to Red Bull's second team, Racing Bulls, with Tsunoda replacing him immediately for the next F1 race in Japan next weekend.
Red Bull's stakeholders have collectively agreed this is necessary because Lawson was so far off Max Verstappen at the first two events, they doubt he has the confidence and capacity to turn it around quickly while the car is difficult to drive - and do not think he can play an effective part in helping to fix that right now.
This is despite picking Lawson precisely because Red Bull claimed his potential was higher than Tsunoda's, and that his mentality meant he could handle setbacks and pressure.
It is a hell of a U-turn to turn its back on the driver Red Bull lauded as the best choice in December 2024, and turn to the driver it was strongly hinting would not ever get a shot at Red Bull Racing and would probably have to be let go.
Beyond what it might say about the ongoing divide between Red Bull's top brass - Christian Horner has always favoured stability, while Helmut Marko is a renegade operator who wants to hire and fire drivers on a whim - there is understood to be a unified belief that a very early driver course correction was required based on how 2025 had started compared to Red Bull's expectations.
It is telling that in Red Bull's official announcement, Horner says Tsunoda's experience "will prove highly beneficial in helping to develop" the RB21, as Horner has said there is "a lot of work to be done" with Red Bull's 2025 challenger.
That's significant.
It means this isn't just about scoring better results in a car Lawson's simply underachieving in - even though Red Bull has fewer than half the points of championship leader McLaren (36 to 78) because only Verstappen has scored points for it so far.
Red Bull admitted it has failed to make the progress expected on this year's car, and it implies that the goalposts are slightly different now versus when Lawson was picked to partner Verstappen.
Its 2025 issues have undermined Red Bull's intention for Lawson to step into a car that was kinder to its drivers and would therefore allow him to adapt quickly and aid a title push.
Instead, the car still needs more work than Red Bull hoped, and Lawson hasn't been able to adapt as fast as Red Bull thought. He couldn't deal with its traits - he was completely lost with it in China, as various radio messages during the grand prix indicated - and his lack of pace and inexperience means he can't help with its development either.
This kind of justification around the driver swap indicates that Red Bull is at least somewhat aware of its broader set of problems, and wants a better comparison to Verstappen to get a handle on how much is the car and how much is the second driver.
Maybe as a result of past second-driver limitations, and/or its own technical arrogance, Red Bull has ended up getting too confident in its own designs, and not listened to Verstappen's critical feedback as much as it should because it didn't realise how much Verstappen was papering over the cracks.
It's possible that Sergio Perez's irreversible decline, and the extent of Lawson's instant struggle, has finally woken Red Bull up. And Lawson's paid the price for a wider failing.
Horner calls it "a purely sporting decision" as the team tries to mount title bids in the drivers' and constructors' championships, but there is a more personal element to it, too, as Horner also referenced a "duty of care to protect and develop Liam".
It is felt that Lawson will benefit from being removed from Red Bull Racing to rebuild his confidence after "a difficult opening period to the season" for him.
Red Bull also wants Lawson to build his F1 knowledge up back at Racing Bulls, which he knows well from his two part-seasons in 2023 and 2024, and which has a less problematic if slightly slower car.
It will be interesting to see how Verstappen responds to this, with suggestions already from Dutch media that he is less than impressed.
That may be because it's not like Red Bull has been blindly developing itself into trouble with no feedback at all that its cars had some problems - Verstappen has been highlighting various car issues for a couple of years now, if not longer, and felt ignored at times.
More on Tsunoda/Lawson swap
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Is Tsunoda doomed to fail at Red Bull too?
Red Bull rationale for brutal Lawson-Tsunoda U-turn explained
Red Bull replaces Lawson with Tsunoda - what you need to know
A failure to act on that, for whatever reason, has eventually caught up with Red Bull, and it is said that the Verstappen camp fears the team doesn't know how to address the RB21's limitations yet.
And while Tsunoda may prove an instant upgrade on Lawson if he can handle the RB21's vices more effectively, his feedback is unlikely to be the missing link in Red Bull’s development troubles.
