Max Verstappen ‘furious’ with Red Bull as driver struggling with painful injury

The F1 paddock has been engulfed in chaos ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, with Liam Lawson set to be sacked by Red Bull after just two race weekends. The New Zealander will return to the Racing Bulls squad and Yuki Tsunoda will be promoted in his place.

Lawson’s two Grand Prix with Red Bull were nothing short of a disaster. The 23-year-old failed to make it out of Q1 in both the sprint and feature race sessions and didn’t score a point. Team-mate Max Verstappen notched 36 in the same period.

Elsewhere, all eyes are on McLaren after a dominant weekend in Shanghai. The Woking-based squad have their eyes on both World Championships, but nerves were intense after Lando Norris suffered a critical brake issue during the Chinese Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel has revealed his one major F1 regret, explaining that he wishes he used his platform to advocate for causes close to his heart at an earlier stage.

“When I started as a rookie, I was solely focused on racing and it was the only thing that was occupying my day, really,” he told the BBC.

“But towards the last couple of years, I think it’s probably one of the things, maybe the only thing that I would say I regret, is not to speak out earlier in my career and seeing the potential power in terms of reach and audience that you might have as a professional athlete to inspire people. Since then [I’ve been] trying to spread messages that are important to me

Fernando Alonso was driving through a neck injury at the Chinese Grand Prix. The Spaniard was forced to retire from the race in Shanghai after suffering a brake failure.

“I was wearing some neck protection because I’ve had a pinched nerve or something these past few days,” he explained to the Spanish press. “But in the end, it didn’t help much because I didn’t do many laps.

“We had a brake issue. The rear brakes were very hot from the first lap, and on the last one before retiring, I hit the brakes into turn one, and the pedal went all the way down with no braking power.”