So just who will be Max Verstappen’s team-mate at Red Bull when the Formula 1 season reconvenes at the Japanese Grand Prix in a week’s time?

With Red Bull understood to be giving serious consideration to swapping Liam Lawson and Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda for the next race at Suzuka after the former’s nightmare opening fortnight to the new F1 season, the spotlight on the drive that team boss Christian Horner has regularly admitted is the “hardest seat in Formula 1” has again intensified, despite the off-season change of occupant.

The speculation around Lawson’s future – and discussion around what Red Bull could have done differently to this point and what they might do next – was naturally a talking point on the latest edition of The F1 Show as Simon Lazenby, Ted Kravitz and Bernie Collins reconvened to discuss the major topics in the sport following last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.

On Lawson’s initial results relative to Verstappen after three successive early exits in qualifying sessions and no points scored, Collins said: “The performances didn’t look great from either race weekend so far.

“[In China] seven tenths off in Q1 is enough to put them at very different ends of the grid.

“Max is very, very strong. He gets the most out of the car. He puts the lap in when it matters, he very rarely makes mistakes. He generally outqualifies others who make mistakes. He gets the best lap together when it matters and even in races when it matters, he manages to pull it out.

“There was a very interesting, in my opinion, interview with Christian Horner on Friday. Natalie [Pinkham] pushed him on team development, and he said that the team had followed the direction of their fastest driver in developing the car that’s quite tricky to drive that lots of other people cannot get on top of because it is so nervous and twitchy

“Max can handle that; that’s the development direction they’ve gone.

“How difficult is it for them to come out of that? Are they ever going to get that second seat going?”

Listen in full to the latest episode of The F1 Show below as Bernie Collins, Ted Kravitz and Simon Lazenby review the Chinese Grand Prix.

This week’s episode includes discussion on the significance of Hamilton’s Sprint win, the reasons for Ferrari’s double disqualification, Piastri’s bounce-back victory and the prospects for a lively McLaren intra-team title duel, Red Bull’s second seat conundrum, Mercedes’ form and answers to the latest fan questions. Subscribe now on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Spreaker

Although Lawson had never driven at either Albert Park or the Shanghai International Circuit before, and even Verstappen has described the new 2025 Red Bull as a challenging car to drive, the under-pressure New Zealander admitted after his wretched Chinese GP that car performance was something he had “got to get on top of as quickly as I can”.

Kravitz believes “they’ve got to give him some time” ahead of a race on a circuit he has driven on.

“They’d be crazy to replace Lawson for Japan because Lawson knows Suzuka like the back of his hand and is clearly going to be better there,” he said.

“He’d never driven in Australia and China, which is a really tricky track to get the best out of.”

Collins, who again questioned why Lawson was not given more testing time in an older Red Bull car before his promotion to the senior team, also suggested they could have approached the whole process of selecting a replacement for Sergio Perez differently given the challenging characteristics of their car.

“I think they’re in big trouble,” she said. “I think that they should have looked at the younger talent and said, ‘who is the most forward aero balance [driving style]?’. That’s what we believe the characteristic of that car is, it’s very on-the-nose and very different to the Racing Bulls in characteristic.

“So they should have looked [to see which] of their young drivers is driving the closest to that spectrum, they are the one who is going to succeed the most.

“They should have maybe put all of them in an old Red Bull for a day and said ‘who can get the best lap time out of this car?’. That’s one metric of doing it because the Racing Bulls is fundamentally different. People who have failed in the Red Bull – (Alex) Albon is a great example. He is driving brilliantly in the Williams and arguably if you offered him the Red Bull seat again he might not go back because that car is not to his liking.”

Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix on April 4-6, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime