P1 with Matt and Tommy - Liam Lawson will race for Red Bull next season!

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

We're back with a second emergency podcast in as many days, as Red Bull confirms that RB — sorry, Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson will partner Max Verstappen next season. How will he fare? What does this mean for Yuki Tsunoda? And who is Lawson's most likely replacement? Plenty of questions for us to get stuck into! Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race podcast series, every P1 episode ad-free, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with other F1 fans!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Another one, another podcast. We thought we were done for maybe at least 24 hours, but no. Red Bull, of course, announced Sergio Perez leaving, or, to be fair, Perez announced it himself, whatever it is. And now we've got Liam Lawson news already. Sign sealed, delivered Tommy for 2025. Indeed.

Yeah, they love their late announcements at the end of the season, Red Bull. we literally had you in the drive ratings as a Christmas character saying Merry Christmas, everyone, and here we are still not Christmas, and we're still announcing the grid. We still are. So, of course, we did go into Perez and our thoughts around that in the previous podcast. So if you want to go and check that out on YouTube or on audio platforms, it's over there for you to chat, to listen. We chatted. God, you can tell we're tired.

We've been travelling around and just finished our P1 Live Show tour, which was awesome. So yeah, I guess first things first, we have to go with our initial thoughts of the fact Liam Blasen is now fully confirmed as Max Verstappen's teammate for next year. My first thoughts are that it's not a surprise with everything. It feels like a lot of these news, apart from maybe like Hamilton to Ferrari, a lot of these pieces of breaking news have been the worst kept secrets for quite some time. And I don't know, it feels more like, I don't know if it's just this day and age of social media and, gossip and rumors and whatnot, but it just feels like everything spreads like wildfire a lot quicker than perhaps years gone by. And this one, it seemed pretty set on and it turned out to be true. Yeah, it's kind of almost a little bit annoying. I think that's why the Hamilton news at Ferrari

was so exciting and so crazy because it came out of nowhere, whereas now every single driver move, every single thing happening, you kind of already know in advance on Twitter about three or four days, if not longer before. And it's just, you're just waiting for an official announcement. So yeah, this one, while people will, maybe if you, you aren't kind of looking at social media and seeing a lot of the rumours, maybe a bit surprised that it's not maybe Yuki Sonoda or someone else, but I think for a few days now, we've always known that it was going to be Liam Lawson. We did indeed. So let's go straight into the first question from P1 Patreon member, TVR driver. What will Lawson need to do to keep the seat?

past the summer break. Yes, I mean, that in itself is quite a savagely hinting question that Lawson could in the future potentially come under fire from Red Bull because that is what's happened previously. Three minutes into his announcement podcast. How will he not be fired? Well, look, we're just asking the question, isn't it? This is how it is.

We're answering the questions that you've asked. So, yeah, I think Lawson, Red Bull, it's a difficult one, right? Because Perez was treated very differently in terms of given a lot more time than the likes of Ghazli and Albon. So then you start to think, okay, are Red Bull now more lenient

in their approach of trying to develop a driver? Or is it because Perez had overwhelming support and a lot of money coming with him as well? What Lawson will need to do is just not be a minute behind Vastappen and being knocked out in Q1. I think Lawson does have the potential. And of course, we sort of hinted at it

in our last podcast around feeling as though Yuki had deserved that seat more. But I think it's also worth mentioning that Lawson is not a bus driver. We're not saying he is... Yeah, good job. Yeah, we're not saying that he is not a talent because he is.

He has shown that by the fact that he's jumped into a car with no preseason testing at random points, which I can only imagine is so difficult to get your head around and also be on the pace. So he just needs to learn as quickly as he has done, show those moments of potential. He doesn't have to even turn up every single race weekend.

He'll be learning tracks as he goes. But just having those moments, that spark of what Liam Lawson had when he first came into Formula One is what Red Bull will be looking for, in my opinion. And they'll give him a season, unless he's bidding at every single race. they will give him a season in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important here to realize, I know a lot of people will go,

oh, why not Yuki, why not Carlos Sites, why not all these other drivers? They do not need someone to beat Max Stappen. They don't need anyone to... What you say about Perez and how he's performed, the way he performed this year is absolutely the reason that he had to go.

The previous year, he still was underperforming massively, but he finished second in the championship. they still won the constructors. And for Red Bull, it's still a success. It's still a success last year based on the fact that, yes, they finished third in the constructors, but Max won the driver's title. And they can just let Max get on with it.

That whole team is built around Max. You can tell that every upgrade, every kind of performance kind of idea and how they develop the car will always be about Max Verstappen and utilizing his ability and the best out of him. so they don't need to put another number one driver alongside Matchless Tappan, and that is the way it will be. So Lawson just needs to be there or thereabouts, do better than Perez, but you might even have less pressure next year because Red Bull might not even be expected to win the Constructors' Championship, and that could actually help him in a sense.

I disagree with that. I think Lawson will feel a huge amount of pressure going into the top team with only less than half a season worth of race experience under his belt. It's a huge task for him to come in. And you see the social media post as well. Like there's a lot of people that already think that he's not going to do a great job in comparison to what Yuki Sonoda could have potentially done. So I hope for his sake, he is able to disconnect, really focus over the offseason,

enjoy the fact that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for him and deliver what we have seen in glimpses, but we'll need to see a little bit more of that. next year. But it's a great opportunity. He's got, you know, he can easily have podiums next year. So, very exciting for him. And next question, P1 Patriot member Tony Soprano. Did Red Bull learn nothing from the mistakes of rushing Gasley and Albon into the Red Bull seat? I think they have learnt, but also, as you touched upon there, Tommy, this will always be a Max Verstappan team. So unless Max leaves, and then they try and make it more about both drivers, that dynamic's not really going to change all that much.

They're just trying to find a driver that can deal with the car that they create, like Max can, and to pick up as many points as possible. Gazzley and Albon, yeah, both of those drivers struggled. Don't get me wrong. And it's the curse of the number two seat again with Perez. But they didn't,

they were in, uh, in Red Bull at the time when Red Bull weren't, Of course, Perez finished second in the championship in 2023, but that's because Red Bull had an almighty car where Vastappan was breaking records, left, right and centre. There was still a gap between Vastappan and Perez. Albin himself, when he was trying to get the Williams seat,

presented that kind of evidence, didn't he, that the gap was the same, if not Albin was actually better than Perez, but because Max was finishing third, Album was finishing 12, whereas when Max was winning races, Paris was finishing third and fourth and it looked better, but the gap was the same, if not worse. Exactly. So it's just been like that way since Daniel Ricardo, really.

He's the only one that's really taking it to Max in the last, God knows how many years. So, yeah, Rebel have always got that problem on their hands. But another fresh talent, I'm really excited. Of course, I do feel for Sonoda. I really do because he has got the experience that you would think Rebel would maybe lean towards as well, considering they have finished third in the constructors and I know you say they don't care about it but the ideal is to win both

as much as they finish third in the teams. There's still a lot of money to be made and it looks much better if both drivers are performing. So yeah, it's exciting. Having a new driver in Red Bull, the top team is something that I can't wait to see and how it'll unfold next year.

And I wish Lawson the absolute best of luck and I hope for his sake he comes out the blocks in a reasonable manner and doesn't start throwing the, the bird or middle fingers or whatever it might be at people straight away. I don't think that's probably the way to go like he did in Mexico with Checo. Yeah, exactly. He is actually the least experienced driver to ever be promoted to Red Bull.

So he's only had 11 races before joining the big team. And to be fair to Red Bull, you know, we talk about the mistakes of rushing Gasly and Albon, but Red Bull has always been sink or swim. you know, Vestappen and Vettel actually had less time at Red Bull, or the same, sorry, in Vettel's case, but in Vestappen's case, less time than Gassley. And Gassley obviously failed. Vestappen has won four world championships. So it is that kind of sink or swim.

And you can argue that, you know, they got Perez in, they mentioned Albin who didn't do too great to, you know, Gazley also. Perez had hundreds of races under his belt when he joined. and he's also failed there. So I think it is just the nature of that team and it's going to be an incredibly difficult job. Is it arguably one of the most difficult kind of positions on the entire Formula Ongrid to be Maxis teammate?

Probably yes. So, yeah, I don't think they can really kind of, you can't beat them too much up about it, in my opinion, because they tried with experience and that also failed. It's more just the nature of how they approach their racing that they are very much a one driver team and that that's the risk versus reward that they pay. Sometimes it pays off because we say like, you know, putting two number ones, take points off each other.

This, they're backing one driver, but when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong and that that's when they get under big pressure and we kind of question it. Indeed. So let's kind of dive into. how we think he'll do, I guess, any sort of predictions, early, early insights into what we think will happen. It really does depend on the performance of that Red Bull car, in my opinion, because we saw Perez was still a healthy chunk away from Max in 2023, but finished second in the championship. This year, I haven't got the exact data of whether he was even slower this

year. You would maybe say so in terms of the results, but obviously the results are damning when the Red Ball was struggling. So for me, if Red Bull are similarly paced to what was sort of the last two thirds of the season just gone, then Lawson's going to have a lot of work on his hands, for sure. Let's kind of dive into a little bit of how we think he'll do then. What sort of early predictions do we have? For me, it's going to fully depend on that Red Bull. As we saw with Paris, you can finish second in the championship,

but still be a mile off max if the Red Bull is dominant. But you come to this year, and it looked so much worse. for Perez. Of course it did. He lost his seat, even the Red Bull, like, Sergio decided to step down. I'm not sure that's quite how it all unfolded there, guys. But I think Lawson, he's got that aggressive driving style.

We've already seen that. He's willing to take the battles, whether that will then, maybe he'll take that too far potentially next year, and he'll get his elbows out a little bit too much. We don't know. It's all yet to be seen. But for me, if the Red Bull is the same performance as those last two-thirds of the season, is all going to come down to his qualifying.

And a pretty not great statistic in his favour or against him, of course, is that Yuki Snowda outqualified him 6-0. But on the flip side of that, you have to say he doesn't have as much experience as Yuki. And Rebel clearly see a much higher ceiling, potentially, with what Liam Lawson can do once he's got that, the mileage under his belt.

So for me, I think he will have a steady start to the season and sort of improve as the year goes on, in my opinion. And yeah, he'll get some podiums. I think he'll also, I think he'll do better than Perez. I feel like to think that he'll be anywhere near Max, I don't think is realistic. I don't think that's realistic for potentially even anyone on the grid now that we've seen the trend too much to think

that he's going to be able to be on the back of the Stappen or even beating him. That's not what he's there to do. He just needs to be closer, bagging, points finishes, the odd podium. And I think that'll be enough for him. And I could see him doing that personally. I think despite, and we'll get into Yuki Sonoda,

and my thoughts on that, just from the thoughts of like, Sonoda deserving the seat, I don't think means, and in my personal opinion, that Liam Lawson doesn't deserve it because he has done a good job with the two kind of half seasons he has.

Let's not forget their half seasons of jumping in halfway through. And for him to be there or thereabouts with Yuki is impressive. And yeah, he seems like he's certainly not short on confidence and kind of his thoughts and his own ability. So he's not going to kind of feel pressure in terms of that sense, I don't think. I will say that he's not necessarily had two half seasons. he's only had 11 races and full stop. That's all.

So it's kind of not even one half of a season. Two very short seasons. Yeah, yeah. Let's not say that because that sounds like he's had almost a full season, which he hasn't. He's 22 years old, a lot of learning to do. Let's go to the next question. People on Patreon, remember, cheap seats.

Why does Red Bull use Yuki as the measuring stick for its drivers, but not give him the promotion? I do feel for Yuki Sonoda, he's been there. He's, delivered in a car that hasn't been that great for a lot of the time. He's had a lot of

it was a bit of a meme, wasn't it? He was finishing 11th a lot of the time and doing pretty well. Don't get me wrong. He had his mistakes earlier on when he first joined Formula One but I feel like he has been ironing them out now and he's becoming a much more of a rounded driver and scoring

points. Of course Red Bull must have data. They must look into absolutely everything when comparing the two. Horner even said it was very tight between the two drivers. But I think it is just a case of Red Bull C that there is a higher ceiling for Liam Lawson in the fact that he's had 11 races.

Sonoda's been in Formula One for four seasons now, I think it is. So clearly there's something about Yuki Sanoda that they don't feel is ready for the main seat. And I would love to have seen Yuki Sanoda, at least just for a year, just give him a go, let Liam Lawson learn. for a year in 2025 at V-Carb, give Yuki the shot. If it doesn't work out, then we'll cross that bridge when it happens.

But instead, they've promoted Lawson, which is not undeserving. But I also feel like Yuki has put in the hard graft to be sort of capable and worthy of being Max Verstappen's teammate. Yeah, you do have to feel for Yuki Sonoda because essentially like this question says, he's been the yardstick. So he beat DeVries comfortably. DeVries basically got dropped from Formula One completely. Daniel Riccardo comes in, oh, if you beat Sonoda, you get the Red Bullseet.

Yuki Sanoda beat him and Daniel Ricardo loses his drive. Then Lawson comes in and, oh, if you beat Sonoda, you might get the Red Bull seat. Doesn't be Yuki Sonoda and gets the Red Bull seat. So from that side, Yuki Sonoda's done everything that they've asked of him, which is why it's so disappointing. He's not been given a shot. I know the biggest thing that people will

jump on and I understand why is that he is a Honda driver and of course Honda will be leaving Red Bull but what I don't think is fair is that of course he's been fortuitous in that kind of to get him in Formula One in the first place

with having the Honda backing and you could maybe even argue that that saved him in his first season when he did under deliver and had a lot of crashes and underperformed. But just because he is a Honda driver doesn't mean that should define his whole career and you're not allowed to promote him when he's done a good enough job. Because at the end of the day, he is a Red Bull employed driver. Red Bull employed their drivers as a Red Bull driver, not a V-Carb driver or anything.

It is you are a Red Bull driver and Horner and everyone there decides how they basically place them in those two teams. So I think it's unfair that, you know, it's helped him. in the past, but it shouldn't just, when he's performed well, that it shouldn't just be like a label that he must now go everywhere Honda goes, because he's done a good enough job to move

up in Formula One. He's beaten drivers that have like Daniel Ricardo and Lawson as well. So yeah, it's a shame to see just see what happens now with him really. Next question, people on Patreon member Emma underscore Marie.

What will Yuki do now? Well, it seems, of course, he's linked with Honda. They're going to Aston Martin. That would be the most logical route for Yuki. You know that Honda will be saying, look, Sonoda, he's our guy. We want him in that Aster Martin seat. Problem is, you've got Fernando Alonzo,

who is an incredible driver, is very, very highly valued, I would imagine, by Aston Martin. and then you have Lance Stroll who has an infinity contract. So good luck getting him out as long as Lawrence Stroll is in charge. So there's only two seats at the inn. One of them is going to have to budge. One seat at the end, really.

Well, yeah. And even with Fernando Alonzo, disaster mightn really want to get rid of him. How long does Fernando Alonzo stay in that team? Because if that doesn't happen, then Yuki all of a sudden is kind of stuck at where he is at the moment. And you kind of wonder what's going through his head of, would I go with Honda?

Will there be an opportunity there? Or do I wait and see? Does Liam Lawson perform? If he doesn't, do I then get a sniff at the Red Bull drive? Because of course, if Lawson has a really difficult 2025, it's not out of the realms of possibility that UK gets a call up. But that's only ifs, buts and maybes. So it's a difficult situation for Sonoda.

he just has to absolutely smash the life out of 2025, just deliver like this is completely unfazed him, do exactly what is done this year, but even better, and then see what 26 and beyond brings. And then get ignored by Horner again, probably. Which would probably be the case. But this is it, right? You kind of open your mind and your opportunities to elsewhere as well.

Yeah, we've seen what is done for Albin and Gassley moving away from those teams and that would be a good thing for Yuki as well. I think Aston Martin is the logical step but Fernando Alonzo is going to cling on for dear life now he's got Adrian Nui in that team and going to want to deliver a win

or maybe even a championship again even if he's 50 years old so it depends what they do from that side and it does put Yuki in a difficult situation because it's that kind of and this is just Formula One in general you know you wait and it's all about being in the right place

at the right time and that is very much a case that's been there with Red Bull juniors and other junior drivers but in particular Red Bull you know we've seen junior drivers that have done a very good job and it just hasn't worked for them

I mean like Liam Lawson you just think like less than a year and a half ago would you have ever dreamed that he'd be Stappan's teammate no it didn't look like it'd even get a Formula 1 seat until Daniel Riccardo got

the injury that he picked up in Zandvot. So things can change very quickly. Yeah, I think Yuki Sunoda, you're right, just has to keep doing what he's doing, beat whoever comes in at racing balls. I think we all know who that's going to be and see where it goes from there.

Well, that's segue, Tommy. Of course, it does seem as though Isaac Hadjar is the driver that will 99% probability get that racing bull's seat, not V-carb from here, from next year. I finally caught that. Which, oh, God, racing balls, I can't get my brain around that. It's too close to Red Bull. It's better than R-B, though.

I kind of got used to V-Carb now, you know what I mean? Like a little V-carb. It's just, it's different. It's different enough to saying Red Bull. But yeah, Isaac Hajar, of course, who narrowly missed out on the Formula 2 title, looks to be the driver that will get that second seat. and yeah, we'll see how he does. It's very much a case

if we can't really judge right now. But he'll have a fantastic measuring stick with Yuki Sonoda to go up against. So let's see how he does. Yard stick sonoda, as he is now known. Yeah, the Hajjar has done a great job in F2 that it seems the Red Bull are now going back to basically whoever is the best

junior in that academy and the next in line gets the gets the seat and yeah exciting to see another new talent on the grid to be very interesting to see how it does absolutely and that is it we are done here maybe this is the final one before christmas if not we'll see what other breaking news happens until colapinto signs for racing bulls and then we'll be back once again so look forward to that if it does happen thank you to each and every one of you that came to the p1 live shows over the last week, it was absolutely awesome.

You guys brought incredible energy, and yeah, there'll be some clips going out at some point, maybe next year, well, because we filmed one of the shows, which is very exciting. So look forward to that. If you've ever wondered what a P1 live show is. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts are, I will just shout out everyone that went to the P1 live show because it's always an incredible experience and, you know,

it's so much fun and then to actually meet people that, You know, the podcast means a lot to is always so lovely. You know, people being so nice and sharing their experiences. And even someone, if you're an audio listener and heard our ramblings at the end of every podcast episode about penguins and stuff, someone knitted some little penguins for us and all sorts of crazy little gifts. And it's so lovely that the podcast means so much of people. And the scrapbook as well that we had, don't forget, from Faith. A big shout out to Faith, who gave us this massive scrapbook of 30 pages long of favorite YouTube intros and everything else. It was awesome. So thank you so much, everybody. We'll see you very soon.

I hope you have a wonderful holidays and Christmas and everything else in between. And maybe we'll see you after it, but if not, see you at some point. Lots of life, take care. Bye. Goodbye. All right, my chore. My chore is wrap your presents. Come on. It's like less than a week to go now.

Wrap your presents. And yeah, send them over to me and Tommy because we will happily accept any presents from here on in. I'm looking forward to tucking into some sweets that we were given over the course of the last few days as well. Tommy, what's your chore to share, please? I desperately need to wrap presents as well. Yeah, yeah, that's on the list. Write your Christmas cards. Yeah, write your Christmas cards and wrap your presents if you celebrate. All right, see you soon. Bye.

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