The F1 US GP Qualifying brought out quite a lot of frustrations over traffic, which ended up being the case for Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson. The two drivers both had a great chance at making it to Q3 for Sunday’s Grand Prix. Yet, some incidents around COTA saw them finish P12 and P13.
Looking back to the 2025 season as a whole, this is not the first time that Tsunoda and Lawson have disagreed. Ever since the Kiwi got demoted from his seat at Red Bull in favour of Tsunoda, the switch has put pressure on both drivers. Now, as they battle for points in the Drivers’ Championship, tensions grow, with only an eight-point advantage for the Racing Bulls driver.
Tsunoda’s frustrating Qualifying
After the Sprint Race success for Tsunoda, the Red Bull driver hoped to ride the momentum into Qualifying. However, the 25-year-old was met with an infuriating turn of events as on-track traffic at COTA held him back. In the print media pen, the Japanese driver went over his cautious approach to Qualifying and setting laps earlier than others.
“Yeah, I just didn’t want to take the risk to, you know, lose the lap time, didn’t make the lap time like yesterday. Which was kind of planned. So, I think I’m happy with the Q1, how it went. It’s just the same, that I have traffic in both laps.”
Despite his attempts for Q3, the Red Bull Racing driver was +0.299s away from making that happen. In his previous statements before the F1 US GP Qualifying, Yuki Tsunoda admitted he felt Lawson was deliberately causing him trouble on track.
Questioned again about the issues, the Japanese driver was frustrated by the situation. He went on to call the Racing Bulls driver out for targeting him during the session.
At turn 11, before the long back straight, Tsunoda thinks Lawson was giving him dirty air to compromise his run.
“Yeah. It is what it is. In my view, I saw he [Lawson] was going very, very slow in Turn 11. Kind of waiting for me in the middle of the corner. So, not ideal. But just more like in the second push that I got to interrupt Alpine, which was much bigger than that.
“Until then, I had enough pace to go through Q3, and I lost everything from that. So, it was very frustrating.”
Trouble in the Red Bull family
After the accusations thrown by Tsunoda, he refrained from a clear answer on whether or not Lawson’s F1 US GP disturbances were on purpose. Deciding to allow the Kiwi to speak for himself in the matter, the Red Bull driver abstained from any other comments:
“I don’t know. Because obviously I’m not in his brain. And I don’t want to take it from his mic as well.”
Compared to the usual fights between drivers, this argument hits closer to home as both Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson are part of the Red Bull family. The Japanese driver spoke of previous talks about these issues, yet he was willing to bring them up to Lawson again:
“I’ll mention it. Let’s see how it goes. We talked enough, I think. Previous, you know, since Monza or whatever. Something. But it’s always like that. I have to always be careful. That’s it.”
Lawson’s optimistic qualifying
On the other side of this, Liam Lawson was satisfied with his Racing Bulls car and his performance so far. Mentioning a certain gust of wind which hindered his drive, the Kiwi felt his qualifying pace did not match the results:
“Yep, I felt really good about the car. Overall, it was very, very strong. So, it’s a shame we got a really big gust of wind at turn one, and that’s really upset the car. And it’s just come at a really bad time. So, it’s frustrating, I think.
“If this was the best we had, I would have been obviously reasonably happy. But having a very quick car this weekend, it’s frustrating. So, we’ll try something tomorrow.”
Before the incident with Tsunoda during the F1 US GP Qualifying, Liam Lawson finished just out of points in the Sprint. Nevertheless, he remained confident that he could improve even more in Sunday’s race:
“Yeah, I mean, the car was good in the race. And I think we probably found a little bit of lap time again. So, yeah, hopefully we can try and move forward in the race.”
Denying all claims of malintent
This F1 US GP Qualifying marked the second session in a row where Tsunoda has actively criticised Lawson. In response to his point of view on the incident, the Racing Bulls driver argued his lack of fault. Stating that this outburst from the Japanese driver does not affect him, Lawson went on to deny any responsibility for Tsunoda’s anger:
“Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what he has to complain about. I don’t really remember being in front of him in qualifying today. He’s obviously angry. He can be angry, but it doesn’t bother me.”
