However, with all things considered, Red Bull won’t be any clearer as to who they’ll want in their top team.
Here’s what we learned at the Losail International Circuit:
Is there a Red Bull frontrunner?
With one race now left in the season, there is still plenty to play for.
Perez’s failure to finish on a weekend where his teammate won leaves the gap between the Red Bull drivers at 277 points. The gap between Red Bull and McLaren in the constructors championship is now 59 points.
Liam Lawson in front of Yuki Tsunoda qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix. Photo / Getty Images
While harsh, the Mexican driver’s repeated failures this season has cost Red Bull tens of millions of dollars. And while he does bring in huge sponsorship from Mexico, we’re now at the point where the Peso won’t offset that.
The only issue for Red Bull is the lack of an obvious replacement. Objectivity aside, Lawson - at this point - probably hasn’t done enough to step up into Red Bull next year.
Teammate Tsunoda’s place with the team is tied to engine supplier Honda, and means his future could lie elsewhere when its Red Bull deal ends in 2026 to move to Aston Martin.
Reserve driver Isack Hadjar hasn’t driven in Formula One, and surely won’t be thrown in the deep end at Red Bull? In Formula Three, Red Bull prodigy Arvind Lindblad is making waves, but is also not ready.
Externally, Williams’ Colapinto remains linked with a Red Bull switch, but has now crashed for three straight race weekends, with two ending his Grands Prix.
Once all is said and done, it could be the Red Bull shareholders of all people who decide the winner of this race.
Crossing the line
Formula One is no place for participation trophies, but Lawson should be commended on surviving the chaos to even finish the race.
Four drivers were forced out through on-track incidents, another retired altogether from damage suffered in avoiding one. Of those five drivers, Perez and Nico Hulkenberg both have more than 200 races worth of experience. Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll have more than 150 each.
Physically, Qatar is one of the most difficult races on the calendar. The high temperatures last year saw it moved to December to try to negate the challenges it brought. On track, the number of high-speed corners can play havoc with a driver, lap, after lap, after lap.
Kiwi Liam Lawson in action during the Qatar Grand Prix. Photo / Getty Images
Lawson getting to the finish continues his record of completing every race he’s started, something his Racing Bulls team will be thankful for in an era where writing cars off counts towards the cost cap spending limits.
What’s more, he was also able to keep his composure after the incident with Valtteri Bottas saw him penalised.
For reference, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton told his Mercedes team he wanted to retire the car, after he was hit by a penalty late in the race.
Learning curve
With just six races guaranteed in Lawson’s 2024 stint, Qatar is the only repeat from the five-race spell he completed last year.
Make no mistake, Red Bull would have had this race circled on the calendar to evaluate Lawson’s improvement.
While finishing 14th might not jump off the page, Lawson’s efforts in sprint qualifying show that the pace is there over a single lap.
He’s also shown he’s improving race to race. Having qualified for the Grand Prix in 17th, Lawson was 14th by the end of the first lap, only for a misjudgment to cause the incident with Bottas and earn a penalty.
Lawson did apologise to his Sauber opposite after the race.
Head to head
The first point of reference in motorsport is how you do against your teammate. Equal machinery is the truest gauge of where drivers compare, on track.
With that being said, Lawson finishing behind Tsunoda for the third race in a row isn’t what the Kiwi needed.
Read what you want into Racing Bulls’ decision to pit both of their drivers late for the soft tyres to effectively set up a shootout on track between Lawson and Tsunoda. This time around, you’d have to objectively give the win to Tsunoda.
Within the context of Red Bull’s decision, neither Lawson nor Tsunoda have comprehensively outperformed the other. Last season, Lawson led the finishes 4-1, however, Tsunodo holds a 3-2 lead heading into the final week of 2024.
Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko has indicated Tsunoda’s temperament may keep him from a place in the senior team next year.
Throughout the season, Tsunoda has 30 points from his 23 races. Lawson and Daniel Ricciardo only manage a combined 16 points. If it’s judged solely on results, it’s entirely plausible to see a Verstappen-Tsunoda pairing next year.
Whether politics will allow it, though, is something else.
Abu Dhabi decider
In Lawson’s favour, though, is his record at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
While he may have sat out of 2023 in his Red Bull reserve role, the 2022 season saw Lawson strive at the Yas Marina Circuit - albeit in Formula Two.
Needing two podium finishes to take third in that season’s championship, Lawson took first place in the sprint race, and third in the feature race to sneak past Logan Sargeant.
So much of Formula One is recency bias. Red Bull only hired Perez for 2021 after he won the season-ending Bahrain Grand Prix for what was then Racing Point, now Aston Martin.
If the Kiwi can produce anything close to those results when the season comes to an end next week, it would leave him in great stead to be the one Red Bull turn to for 2025.
