Red Bull drops Lawson, Tsunoda to replace him for Japanese GP

Yuki Tsunoda would become Max Verstappen's teammate with immediate effect. Red Bull has decided to replace Liam Lawson with the Japanese driver from his home Grand Prix onwards, with Honda expected to pay millions to the team.

Red Bull has not given any official confirmation about a switch between drivers, though it was known that a meeting was taking place after Lawson struggled to make an impact at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The New Zealander qualified last for both the sprint and main grands prix, with speculation about his future starting in the wake of another scoreless weekend.

It seems that Red Bull has been left to pull the trigger and promote Tsunoda for his home race, knowing it can't lose further ground to rivals McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.

It's not the end of the road for Lawson, however, as he will fall back into Racing Bulls in a straight swap with Tsunoda. This puts to bed rumours of a switch to the sister team for Alpine reserve Franco Colapinto, who stepped in at Williams in the second half of last season.

Official confirmation is expected later in the week.

This article was written in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen.