The Red Bull Abattoirs

Red Bull Racing’s approach to driver management has been marked by swift and sometimes controversial decisions, leading to several high-profile dismissals. The recent replacement of Liam Lawson after just two races in the 2025 season underscores this ongoing trend.

Red Bull Racing entered Formula 1 in 2005 after buying Jaguar’s F1 team; it retained David Coulthard as its lead driver and Christian Klien as one of its second drivers. From there, we have this memory that it sacks second drivers at the drop of a hat, but the reality is slightly different.

Slightly!

The reality might be that RBR is treated as a one-car team, and the second driver is just there because the team must enter two cars. That leaves the second driver fully exposed.

There is sometimes brutality regarding its driver line-up, and RBR Advisor Helmut Marko’s frank honesty – delivered with a lack of tact and humanity – often forces team principal Christian Horner into recovery mode. In 20 years, it has only sacked eight drivers during a season, although recency bias shows one in each of the past three seasons.

Seven sackings in 20 seasons don’t sound like much, but few teams replace drivers mid-season, hence the executioner reputation for the teams. Hanging on to Sergio Perez was an outlier, on performances alone, under the ‘brutality precedent’, he should have been sacking well before he was.

Even the second team—Scuderia Toro Rosso into Scuderia Alpha Tauri into Racing Bulls—has had more stability than we remember, with the axe generally swinging at the end of a season. Four times it has sacked a driver during the season.

Pierre Gasly will return to Toro Rosso – Photo: Red Bull

The In-Season Sacking Time Line

Most of the drivers sacked by Red Bull Racing disappeared from Formula 1. A couple have hung around the edges, but only Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon have revived their careers.

The first sacking came in the second season of Red Bull Racing. In 2006, Christian Klien was replaced mid-season due to underwhelming results, being replaced by Robert Doornbos, who was effectively sacked at the season’s end. The following year, American driver Scott Speed faced a similar fate in the junior team after a series of disappointing finishes. He was replaced by Sebastian Vettel, who was eventually promoted to the main team and won four titles in a row.

It took until 2016 for another mid-season axing, with Daniil Kvyat getting dumped for Max Verstappen in the main team a year and a bit after moving up to RBR in 2015 (he ran the junior team in 2014), giving it space to blood Verstappen. Kvyat would spend the next few years as a temporary fix each time Marko tired of a driver, twice returning to the junior team.

Pierre Gasly’s trajectory within the Red Bull ecosystem exemplifies the team’s high expectations. After a strong debut with Toro Rosso in 2017, Gasly was promoted to Red Bull Racing in 2019.

However, his tenure was short-lived; after just 12 races, he was demoted back to Toro Rosso due to inconsistent performances. On his return to the junior team, he secured his first Formula 1 podium with a second-place finish at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. He won remarkably at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, marking AlphaTauri’s first and most recent win under its new name and only its second since inception.

In 2023, Gasly left to join Alpine, partnering with fellow Frenchman Esteban Ocon. His inaugural season with Alpine was highlighted by a podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix, where he secured third place. The following year, despite a challenging start, Gasly played a pivotal role in Alpine’s double podium finish at the Brazilian Grand Prix, finishing third behind his teammate Ocon, and now he is deeply entrenched at Alpine, albeit with Franco Colapinto knocking on the door with a big bag of money.

Alexander Albon’s journey mirrors the challenges many face within the Red Bull program. Debuting with Toro Rosso in 2019, Albon was swiftly promoted to Red Bull Racing mid-season, replacing Gasly.

Despite showing promise, he struggled to match teammate Max Verstappen’s performance. The team was entirely focused on Verstappen, building a car for the Dutchman from which few others have been able to extract speed consistently. It’s not a bad strategy with four titles, but it’s not great for the number two driver.

In 2021, Albon was replaced by Sergio Pérez and took on a test and reserve driver role while competing in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM). There, he secured a maiden win at the Nürburgring before returning to Formula 1 in 2022 with Williams.

He quickly established himself in the team as a fast qualifier and mature racer. He proved he could, and can, drive.

His performances in 2024 contributed significantly to Williams’ midfield battles, and he secured a multi-year contract extension. This solidified his place in the team with the arrival of Carlos Sainz Jr., whom he is already outpacing in 2025.

Sergio Pérez joined Red Bull Racing in 2021 and initially showed promise with multiple podium finishes. In 2023, he struggled as the car pivoted even further to something only Max Verstappen could drive and then the 2024 season proved especially challenging for the Mexican driver.

Despite a strong start with consecutive second-place finishes, Pérez’s performance declined, culminating in incidents and retirements. He finished the season eighth in the standings, significantly trailing teammate Max Verstappen, who clinched his fourth World Drivers’ Championship.

This performance disparity led to a mutual agreement – aka, sacking – for Pérez to depart the team after the 2024 season.

In December 2024, Red Bull announced that New Zealand driver Liam Lawson would replace Pérez for the 2025 season, partnering with Verstappen.

Lawson, who had previously driven for Red Bull’s sister team, Racing Bulls, was seen as a promising talent within the Red Bull Junior Team.

However, his tenure with Red Bull Racing was short-lived… the shortest of all, in fact. In the season opener at the Australian Grand Prix, Lawson qualified 18th and retired from the race after a crash. The subsequent Chinese Grand Prix saw him qualify last and finish 15th, failing to secure any points.

He was sacked last week and shuffled back to the junior team, with Yuki Tsunoda brought in as the next bull to the slaughter.

Red Bull Racing turned Alex Albon’s career on its head when it sacked him.  

Red Bull Racing

* Klien and Liuzzi were contracted to share the second car in RBR’s first season
# Sacked

The Second Team

# Sacked
^ Promoted to RBR
+ One race when Gasly was unavailable

In Season Sackings

2006     Christian Klien – 14 points from 52 Grand Prix. He has since raced in V8 Supercars, F3000, Sportscars, DTM, GT3 and TCR after time as an F1 test driver but never drove a GP again.

2007     Scott Speed (Junior Team) – 0 points from 28 Grand Prix. He has raced since in A1 Grand Prix, NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula E and Rallycross. He never looked back at F1 after leaving.

2016     Daniil Kvyat – 202 points from 112 Grand Prix. He has since run in Sportscars, NASCAR and Formula E. Oddly, after making way for Verstappen at Red Bull Racing, he can also lay claim to dating Kelly Piquet (with whom he has a child) before Verstappen.

2017     Daniil Kvyat (Junior Team)

2019     Pierre Gasly – 436 Points, one win, five podiums from 156 Grand Prix. After getting dumped from the main team, Gasly revived his career with a successful time in the junior team. He is still racing with Alpine in F1.

2023      Nyck de Vries (Junior Team): 2 points from 11 Grand Prix. He moved into Formula E with Mahindra Racing, where he still races.

2024     Daniel Ricciardo (Junior Team) – 1329 points, eight wins, 31 podiums from 258 Grand Prix. Ricciardo was an early star for Red Bull before leaving, with the team focusing only on Verstappen. He eventually returned to the junior team and was sacked last season. He has retired.

2025     Liam Lawson – 6 points from 13 Grand Prix. Lawson was elevated to the main team after replacing Ricciardo at Racing Bulls in 2024. He lasted two races only and has been dropped back to the junior team.