The big Formula 1 news of last weekend was the demotion of Liam Lawson from Red Bull to junior sister team Racing Bulls.
His former teammate Yuki Tsunoda has been promoted to the senior team to partner four-time world champion Max Verstappen, while Lawson will line up alongside Isack Hadjar in what is now a very inexperienced team.
Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko said last week that his team made a mistake with their decision-making over Lawson.
Not good enough
“His performance was unfortunately not good enough and that comes from self-confidence,” he added.
“He’s not kicked out of F1 and Racing Bulls will give him the chance to recover and his career will start again.
“For the benefit for him, he goes back to Racing Bulls, which has a car capable to be top 10 in qualifying and the race.
“Just look in the past, it was [Pierre] Gasly, it happened the same, also to [Alex] Albon and they recovered and they are now competitive F1 drivers.
“On top of it, the RB21 is a car which is not the fastest car but nevertheless very difficult to drive and Max can handle but not at this stage Liam.”
But can a sudden and forced relegation to a sister team leave Red Bull open to legal action from Lawson, whether it be for potential loss of earnings or reputational damage?
Lawson case?
If it were to occur, it wouldn’t be the first case involving Formula 1 this season with McLaren set to take on former roster driver Alex Palou over contract details.
Andrew Street, partner in BCLP’s business and commercial disputes team, told City AM: “Ultimately any claims that Lawson might be hoping to bring will stand or fail on the basis of the specific terms of his contract with Red Bull.
“However, most well advised teams with sister operations are likely to have negotiated and agreed wide contractual discretions to allow them to move drivers between the different parts of their operations.
“That type of discretion can make claims difficult in all but the most extreme circumstances”
It appears, then, that Lawson might just have to deal with his demotion by proving himself on the track.
