Hit or miss? Rating Red Bull’s previous in-season driver swaps

Red Bull have a history of making in-season changes to their driver line-ups, with another coming in the 2025 season.

Ultimately, any driver change can be boiled down to two reasons. Either the current driver isn’t fast enough, or the team is looking to promote a youngster from within – or a combination of the two. With this having happened multiple times in Red Bull’s history to date, let’s take a look at each switch and whether or not it proved to pay off in the long run.

Hit or miss? Every Red Bull mid-season driver swap ranked

2005 – Red Bull – Vitantonio Liuzzi and Christian Klien swap: Miss

Red Bull took an unusual move by signing two second drivers in their first season in Formula 1, with David Coulthard as the lead driver, and Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi both signed up for the second seat, with an arrangement to race in four-weekend blocks.

After one of these blocks apiece, Klien emerged as the preferred driver for the remainder of the season as Liuzzi had to wait for a full-time drive to emerge in 2006, when the newly-formed Toro Rosso team arrived after Red Bull took charge of Minardi.

It was an arrangement that did not particularly work for either driver, and while he did not gain access to front-running machinery in his career, Liuzzi was the driver of the two to go on to start more races in Formula 1.

2006 – Red Bull – Christian Klien out, Robert Doornbos in: N/A

With Mark Webber already signed to become a Red Bull driver for the 2007 season, Christian Klien talked himself out of a drive for the final three races of 2006 when he publicly turned down an offer to race for a Red Bull-backed IndyCar drive the following season.

With that, Red Bull opted to end his season early and draft in test driver Robert Doornbos for the final three races of the campaign.

As Doornbos faced the same situation as Franco Colapinto in 2024, arriving on the grid knowing a race seat would be unavailable to him the following season, and just three races in which to prove himself, it would be unfair to label this swap a hit or miss.

Doornbos returned to testing duties the following season, with Coulthard continuing on at Red Bull to partner Webber.

2007 – Toro Rosso – Scott Speed out, Sebastian Vettel in: Hit

Scott Speed and Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost reportedly did not get on during their time together, but with Speed not having registered a point in his season-and-a-half in Formula 1, the decision to bring Sebastian Vettel into the sport was made.

Given Vettel went on to become a four-time World Champion and earn 53 Grand Prix victories, 57 pole positions and become one of the most successful Formula 1 drivers in history, we can file this under one of the easier ‘hits’ on this list.

Speed enjoyed success outside Formula 1, however, keeping his Red Bull affiliation in NASCAR before going on to win multiple rallycross titles.

2009 – Toro Rosso – Sébastien Bourdais out, Jaime Alguersuari in: Miss

If the bar for Red Bull juniors is to make it to the senior team, then Jaime Alguersuari’s time has to be labelled ‘miss’ in this category after he replaced Sébastien Bourdais, but he was something of a record-breaker upon his arrival in Formula 1.

The Spanish driver, at the age of 19 and 125 days, was the youngest person ever to take part in a Grand Prix at that point (until a certain Mr Verstappen came along), and he steadily grew into his time at Toro Rosso.

His time with Red Bull’s sister team was certainly no failure, outscoring Sébastien Buemi by the 2011 campaign in his second full season with the team, but with no room upwards at Red Bull as Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel dominated the championship, he and Buemi were both out of a drive for 2012 as Toro Rosso freshened up their line-up.

More on Red Bull and their changes over the years

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2016 – Red Bull – Daniil Kvyat out, Max Verstappen in: Hit

The hit of all hits.

For those of us observing at the time, however, it was hard not to feel for Daniil Kvyat as he was moved aside for the teenage Max Verstappen in early 2016.

Kvyat had beaten an in-form Daniel Ricciardo in the points standings in 2015 and scored a podium in China in early 2016, but this swap to bring the Dutchman to Red Bull appeared to be one of looking to promote what turned out to be a generational talent, rather than being an overall slight against the Russian.

This was no more evident than when Verstappen became Formula 1’s youngest ever race winner on his first Grand Prix weekend as a Red Bull driver, holding off World Champion pressure from Kimi Raikkonen in the process.

As for what happened next? Of course, the rest is history, with four World Championships to date for the Dutchman.

2017 – Toro Rosso – Daniil Kvyat out/in/out, Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley both in: Hit and miss

The 2017 season was something of a frantic campaign for Toro Rosso, with Daniil Kvyat dropped for the reigning GP2 champion Pierre Gasly, before being brought back in again as a substitute two races later while the young Frenchman completed his Super Formula season.

On the other side of the garage, Carlos Sainz departed the team early as he made a move to Renault, with Brendon Hartley arriving already as a two-time World Endurance champion.

We have this as a hit and miss based on Gasly performing well enough to be promoted to the senior Red Bull outfit, later becoming a Grand Prix winner with AlphaTauri after his subsequent demotion and showing himself a consistent performer in Formula 1, while Hartley was unable to quite make the same impact, leaving Formula 1 at the end of 2018 with just four points on the board.

He picked up where he left off in sportscars, however, winning two more titles in WEC to date, alongside three outright victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – continuing his long association with Toyota to this day.

2019 – Red Bull – Pierre Gasly out, Alex Albon in: Miss

Alex Albon was elevated to Red Bull from Toro Rosso just half a season into his Formula 1 career, with Pierre Gasly having struggled to match Max Verstappen in his 12 races with the team.

Albon was consistent in the remainder of the 2019 season, only finishing outside the top six once in the final 10 races, but the 2020 campaign proved to be more of a struggle from his perspective.

Despite earning his first podiums in Formula 1, the Thai driver faced a looming issue from outside the team as Sergio Perez was both in the form of his life, and without a seat for 2021 as Aston Martin were bringing in Sebastian Vettel to partner Lance Stroll for the following year.

Ultimately, with less than half of Verstappen’s points total come the end of 2020, Albon was moved back into a reserve role with Perez signed as the first non-Red Bull junior to join the team since Webber in 2007.

Albon has since flourished after rejoining the grid with Williams, however, where he remains to this day.

2023 – AlphaTauri – Nyck de Vries out, Daniel Ricciardo in: Miss

Off the back of an impressive Formula 1 debut with Williams in 2022, former F2 and Formula E champion Nyck de Vries was signed to AlphaTauri in a departure from Red Bull looking at their junior programme for 2023.

Midway through the season, though, he was not matching up to Yuki Tsunoda and was abruptly moved aside for the return of Daniel Ricciardo to the grid, who had made it clear his goal was to make a return to the seat he vacated at Red Bull.

The Honey Badger started solidly, but a broken hand at Zandvoort ruled him out for five races in 2023, and he could not match up to Tsunoda often enough in 2024 to warrant a promotion – with his season ending early, as we’ll discuss momentarily.

2024 – VCARB – Daniel Ricciardo out, Liam Lawson in: Hit

Despite having been potentially spoken about as a Red Bull contender again earlier in his second stint with the sister team, Ricciardo could not make his pace of old return in 2024 and saw his time end after the Singapore Grand Prix.

Liam Lawson, who deputised for Ricciardo after his broken hand in 2023, was given another shot to succeed in what effectively turned into an audition for a 2025 Red Bull seat, given the struggles of Sergio Perez alongside Max Verstappen.

Given it was Lawson who was handed the drive over Yuki Tsunoda at the time, by the metric of a swap seeing a sister team driver get promoted to Red Bull at the time by the end of 2024, this move has to be considered a hit in its own right – though we now know what would follow soon afterwards.

2025 – Red Bull – Liam Lawson out, Yuki Tsunoda in: Wait and see

With only two races complete for Red Bull, the team opted to take Lawson out of the firing line after a difficult start to life at the senior squad.

Having been looked over for a drive in his time with the team to date, Tsunoda was finally given the chance to impress in his fifth season in the sport.

As for what happens next, that is up to the Japanese driver as Lawson is rotated back to Racing Bulls in the hope of rebuilding his confidence.

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