Daniel Ricciardo offers Red Bull solution to Liam Lawson issue

Absence makes the heart grow fonder as the saying goes, and there are a fair few drivers now outside of Formula 1 whose stock has risen sharply on-track without even having turned a wheel this year.Liam Lawson certainly does not fall into that category. Having replaced Daniel Ricciardo towards the back end of 2024 at Red Bull’s sister team Racing Bulls, he then saw off a challenge from Yuki Tsunoda to earn a promotion to Red Bull to be Max Verstappen’s team-mate for 2025.So far so good. What Red Bull expected was an upgrade on the man he replaced, Sergio Perez – who for the vast majority of 2024 saw his reputation as a racing driver trashed given his alarming inferior performances in relation to Verstappen. ‘Colapinto to drive for Racing Bulls after Tsunoda promotion’ | GPFans F1…At the very least Lawson could be expected to keep Verstappen’s rear wing in sight couldn’t he? The truth has been far more brutal. Struggling to get to grips with the RB21’s small operating window and design built in favour of Verstappen, the Kiwi racer has somehow brought even more catastrophic results than Perez.The Mexican could at least bag some minor points. Lawson so far can’t get near the top 10. In the drivers’ standings on zero points, only two rookies in Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto in far inferior cars are keeping Red Bull’s second driver off the bottom of the entire championship.To make matters worse, Verstappen is second in the championship on 36 points, and even both Racing Bulls are outperforming Lawson as a further humiliation.Although, to Verstappen’s credit, he hasn’t milked his superiority. On the contrary he has given Red Bull a nudge over the so far disappointing RB21 by suggesting Lawson would be a lot further up the grid if he was still driving at Racing Bulls.So, Lawson’s credibility as a race driver isn’t the whole issue here – and if anything his struggles are only raising the stock of Perez who doesn’t seem so bad and ‘past it’ after all now even at the age of 35.But as rumours swirl over a driver swap involving Tsunoda and Lawson, in time for the former’s home race in Japan, there is also a good reason – a sporting one too – for Red Bull to return to an old face should they feel the desperate need to take Lawson out of the firing line.So come on down Ricciardo, and not just because he is a much missed character in the paddock, but because in all honesty Red Bull never really replaced him after he left in 2018 in the first place.Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon failed to meet the grade. Perez worked in fits and starts, but it was Ricciardo that arguably offered the most as a team-mate against Verstappen.Maybe at the age of 35, going on 36, he isn’t at his best anymore. He certainly didn’t gain anything either after leaving Red Bull in 2018 – especially after a disastrous two years at McLaren and a lacklustre year at VCARB.At the very least there is an argument he can offer a solution to what is becoming the most poisoned chalice in F1 as Red Bull’s second driver.