Red Bull Reportedly Swapping Liam Lawson For Yuki Tsunoda In Team's Latest Driver Lineup Blunder

Stop me if you've heard this before: Red Bull is looking foolish thanks to its head-scratching driver decisions.

Over the offseason, the team decided to move on from race-winner Sergio Perez. Now, Checo is a great driver, but he struggled in a big way, and the team decided it needed a driver who could reliably keep up with world champ Max Verstappen or, at a minimum, score on most weekends.

Controversially, the team decided to go with Liam Lawson, an impressive driver who had only appeared in 11 Grand Prix, over Racing Bulls driver Yuki Tsunoda, who has competed in four full seasons.

Well… that decision has not panned out through the first two weekends of the season, and multiple reports claim that Tsunoda will be in the second Red Bull when the series rolls into his home nation of Japan next week.

One of those reports comes from the BBC, which claims that, according to insiders, Red Bull brass met in Dubai and reached the decision following an abysmal start to the season for Lawson.

Yuki Tsunoda will reportedly replace Liam Lawson for the Japanese Grand Prix beyond alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull. (Getty Images)

Red Bull Is Making The Right Choice… Even if It Should've Made It Months Ago

Lawson started the season opener in Australia in P18 and failed to finish after spinning in dicey conditions. In China, he started the Sprint from P19 and finished P14, while in the Grand Prix, he started last in P20 and crossed the stripe in P12.

Sure, everyone takes some time to get up to speed, but Red Bull — a team notorious for its ruthlessness with its lineups — certainly expected much better from Lawson in qualifying and nothing less than points finishes in the race.

What has complicated things has been Yuki Tsunoda's strong form early this season. While some including Max Verstappen have claimed that the Racing Bulls car is actually faster in the early going than the Red Bull is, Yuki has been great.

In fact, he was going to have a solid result in Shanghai had his front wing not fallen apart on him in a freak incident that forced him into the pits for a new front wing and resulted in a P16 finish after several other drivers were disqualified.

So, it's looking like Tsunoda will be partnering with Verstappen from Japan, but what should we learn from this?

Personally, I think the takeaway should be that the Red Bull brain trust of Christian Horner and advisor Helmut Marko might need a shakeup.

This has been a major misfire on their part. They threw Lawson in the deep end, and put the team on the backfoot early in the contructors' standings. They're already 42 points behind McLaren, 21 behind Mercedes, and would be behind Ferrari as well if both its cars hadn't been disqualified in China.

The hope for Red Bull now will be that Yuki uses his years of experience to hop in that car and score points while also giving the team a rear-gunner to assist Verstappen.

Will it work? Well, it appears we only have to wait about a week to see.