'Red Bull NEED to change their driver' - Chinese Grand Prix Hot Takes

lawson, red bull, china — Photo: © IMAGO

Chinese Grand Prix

'Red Bull NEED to change their driver' - Chinese Grand Prix Hot Takes

The Chinese Grand Prix yielded another McLaren win

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Sunday 23 March 2025 14:56

Round two of the 2025 Formula 1 world championship yielded another McLaren victory, but this time it was Oscar Piastri taking the win.

Following a mistake in the wet that saw him finish his home grand prix in Australia down in ninth, Piastri bounced back at the Chinese Grand Prix to take a pole position-race victory double, proving to be a cut above his competitors.

McLaren team-mate Lando Norris finished second to secure a brilliant one-two for the Woking outfit, while Mercedes driver George Russell rounded out the podium.

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Ferrari suffered disaster with a double disqualification - a massive comedown after the sprint race that saw Maranello oufit excel, with Lewis Hamilton gaining his first race victory with his new team.

Following a fantastic weekend of action at the Shanghai International Circuit, the GPFans team have given their hot takes and brutal opinions from the 2025 Chinese GP.

GPFans Chinese Grand Prix Hot Takes

Matt Hobkinson - Lead Editor

Red Bull need to change their car or their driver before the Japanese Grand Prix.

Christian Horner’s team are still trying to fix the same problem they’ve had for years. What on earth do you do when you have a car that only Max Verstappen can drive?

Verstappen is arguably the most talented driver on the grid so Red Bull will not want to change the car without reason. But Max isn’t going to win the drivers’ title and Red Bull aren’t going to win the constructors’ this year.

And when you take that fact coupled with Liam Lawson simply being unable to drive the Red Bull - they have a bit of a dilemma.

Race Results: Lando Norris beaten as FIA issue late penalty at Chinese Grand Prix

Liam Lawson has struggled early on at Red Bull

Do you promote Yuki Tsunoda up to the Red Bull team and move Liam back down? But then what happens if the same struggles happen again?

The team need to do something before they arrive in Suzuka. I certainly don’t envy the person who has to either tell Max that they are changing the car or Liam that he’s being demoted.

But something has to give.

Sam Cook - F1 journalist

The sprint race may have given Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen fans some hope, but this championship battle is all about the papaya cars.

Lando Norris took pole and led the Australian GP from start to finish, and now Oscar Piastri has done exactly the same thing at the Chinese GP.

It’s going to be a brilliant title race between the young McLaren duo, but only them, Ferrari and Red Bull are not fast enough to win races at the moment, and Mercedes might be able to challenge the McLarens at odd events, but not consistently enough to give George Russell a chance of a championship fight.

It’s been a while since we’ve said this but…Max Verstappen will NOT win the drivers’ championship.

Max Verstappen has won the last four championships

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Ok. Red Bull need to slow down (and no Liam Lawson I’m obviously not talking to you). Should Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have ever promoted him for this season? Arguably not, but what Red Bull are facing is not a talent problem, it’s a patience problem. The second one of their junior drivers starts to show some pace it’s, ‘ooo why don’t we try them in the second seat?’

Racing Bulls, VCARB, Alpha Tauri, whatever you’re comfortable calling them - the role of that team has always been to prepare drivers for the main outfit should an opportunity come knocking.

Lawson didn’t even complete a full season with RB before being promoted and his confidence, sometimes arrogance, last season came from the fact he was driving an infamously easier car to manage than he now is at Red Bull. You can’t just throw a driver into the hardest seat in F1 after never completing a full season in the sport.

Tsunoda, on the other hand, is at exactly the right stage of his career to be promoted - he’s entering his fifth season of racing for the junior team- but what I wouldn’t want to see happening is for Red Bull to get ahead of themselves purely because Lawson is struggling to adapt and Tsunoda is showing good pace, they make a driver swap after just two races and suddenly, Lawson’s career has been saved AGAIN and it’s now Yuki at risk of being dropped from the sport entirely, a la Ricciardo.

Helmut Marko close your ears; sometimes it’s okay to accept that you don’t have another Max Verstappen waiting in the wings of your driver programme, but it doesn’t mean you have to rifle through all your junior options in one season. Let Tsunoda thrive at RB in 2025!

Chris Deeley - F1 journalist

'Maybe Lewis Hamilton won’t live to regret his move to Ferrari. He gets to fulfil a life goal after all, and it’s possible that he jumped just in time to help steer development for the 2026 rule changes and finally hook title number eight next year. But...'

That's what I wrote straight after the chequered flag fell, when it was 'only' two galaxy brain strategy calls in his first two Ferrari races damaging his place in the standings, with the Australian rain pit-stop decision the worst of the bunch.

Then we all sat back for a well-deserved cup of tea at GPFans Towers with half an eye on our laptops and all hell broke loose. Charles Leclerc's car was underweight and he got disqualified. Hamilton's skid blocks were worn down too far, and he was disqualified.

That's not one, but two different massive, once-in-a-blue-moon technical disasters in a single weekend. Not even a single weekend, a single day, because this wasn't an issue that came up after Saturday's sprint race.

This isn't just a track limits penalty that happens a couple of times a year. The last skid block disqualification before Hamilton (Austin, 2023) was all the back in 2001 for Jarno Trulli's Jordan, and even then the legendary arguer Eddie Jordan managed to get that penalty overturned.

Before George Russell (Spa, 2024) the last underweight car disqualification was in 2013 at the British Grand Prix. This is unbelievably amateur-hour stuff. This isn't the sort of thing that a serious team does.

This is Ferrari, Lewis. This is what you chose. You feeling nervous yet?

Dan Ripley - GPFans Deputy Editor

This was another poor weekend for Red Bull speed wise who remain very much off McLaren's pace and facing the same old problems in a second car with Liam Lawson that plagued Sergio Perez last season.

And yet despite two races now with double McLaren domination, it's Max Verstappen sitting in second in the drivers' championship just eight points off Lando Norris and well within striking range. I have a feeling Red Bull would have settled for that following Bahrain testing.

If (and that's a big IF) Red Bull can extract some more performance from the car between now and Japan there might still be a credible title challenge from Verstappen here where consistency could be his ultimate weapon against squabbling McLarens. Watch this space as Verstappen under no pressure could be the most lethal form of the Dutchman we have seen yet...

F1 HEADLINES: Lewis Hamilton hits out as Ferrari star DISQUALIFIED from Chinese Grand Prix

Written by

Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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Max Verstappen Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Mercedes McLaren Lando Norris