Liam Lawson appears to be in pole position for a Red Bull Racing promotion for the 2025 Formula 1 season after the team's interest in Franco Colapinto cooled.
Despite signing a two-year contract extension earlier this year, Red Bull appears to have finally given up on Sergio Perez being able to turn his woeful form around, with the team hinting it will drop the Mexican following the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
On the Monday after the race, the team's shareholders are meeting to decide on what to do with Red Bull's seemingly cursed second seat next to Max Verstappen, which has yet to be filled adequately since Daniel Ricciardo's exit to Renault for 2019.
A left-field option emerged earlier this season in the shape of Williams stand-in Colapinto, who wowed the paddock with his speed and attitude as Logan Sargeant's mid-season replacement. Colapinto's immediate pace, seemingly without needing an adaptation period or appearing too bothered by the pressure of becoming a high-profile sports star in his native Argentina, certainly ticked several boxes Red Bull has been looking for to fill the difficult seat alongside Verstappen.
With Williams' two seats already filled by Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz for 2025 and beyond, Red Bull entered talks with the squad to secure Colapinto for its main team, a deal which would have included a hefty eight-figure fee for Williams to release its in-demand reserve driver.
But a spate of crashes in Brazil and Las Vegas, which have highlighted Colapinto's inevitable inexperience, have since made Red Bull rethink the wisdom of forking out an eye-watering fee for someone else's junior driver. It has not been averse to looking outside its own talent pool, but only if that option is a clear upgrade over the available drivers, which it has now questioned.
Autosport understands Colapinto's Red Bull chances all but vanished the moment he suffered a 50G impact with the wall in an unnecessary qualifying crash in Vegas, and speaking to Autosport in Qatar, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has since admitted that the 21-year-old is now "not very high on the list".
One additional reason for hiring Colapinto would have been the commercial backing he brings from Argentina, which would offset the loss of Perez's sponsorship from Mexico. But along with the drop in prize money Perez's struggles have led to, Marko acknowledged slumping to third in the constructors' championship has also caused staff at Milton Keynes to miss out on substantial bonuses, which has dented factory morale. It is therefore thought that Red Bull's decision will be based on who it believes has the best potential to make an immediate impact and score as many points on a consistent basis.
That is why Colapinto's crashes have put Red Bull off, and also why Lawson has now emerged as the frontrunner for the seat rather than his more experienced team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.
Tsunoda has been impressively quick against his team-mates, and he has appeared to have a slight edge in qualifying over Lawson too. But while he has clearly matured over the past two seasons and he enjoys generous support from Honda, it appears there is nothing the Japanese can do to dispel lingering doubts over his consistency, attitude and technical ability to be a good fit for the pressure cooker that is Red Bull's frontline seat.
Lawson has impressed Red Bull more than Tsunoda in all those key areas, as well as with his patience when he was forced to step back to a reserve role after stepping in for the injured Daniel Ricciardo last year. And while he may still have to prove he has the out-and-out speed to be a regular race winner, what Red Bull needs is someone who consistently picks up results within a reasonable distance of Verstappen and helps drive development. Out of the available options, Lawson appears to be its guy.
Red Bull's imminent decision to turn to its own talent pool has also boosted F2 frontrunner Isack Hadjar's chances to fill the available seat at Racing Bulls. Hadjar will fight 2025 Sauber debutant Gabriel Bortoleto for the F2 title at Abu Dhabi, but equally important is the Frenchman's running in current F1 cars this weekend. Hadjar will fill in for Verstappen in FP1 as Red Bull completes its mandatory rookie runs and will also enjoy a full day of running in Tuesday's post-season test.
Speaking to Autosport in Brazil, Hadjar admitted he needed the Abu Dhabi running to know if he would be fully ready to step up, having only done few proper performance laps in an F1 car over three FP1 sessions.
But in the paddock, the 20-year-old is seen as a Tsunoda 2.0, so he too will have a lot to prove to Red Bull if he is the full package to be a future Red Bull driver. In Hadjar's wake, Red Bull will be keeping a keen eye on how 17-year-old Arvid Lindblad gets on as the British Swede steps up to F2 next year after an impressive rookie campaign in F3.
