Lawson battled his way to 12th in the classification in China, benefitting three places after the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, and Pierre Gasly’s Alpine were all excluded.

It marked the end of another tough weekend for the young New Zealander and came hot on the heels of a similarly underwhelming result in Australia at the opening round.

Pressure is now mounting on Red Bull to make a change as the squad already finds itself more than 50 points adrift of constructors’ championship leaders McLaren.

“He’s a young guy. We’ve got a duty to look after him and we’re going to do the best that we can to support him,” Horner insisted.

“Liam’s still a very capable driver.

“For whatever reason, we’re not seeing him able to deliver that at the moment.”

In contrast to Lawson, Max Verstappen finished fourth in Sunday’s race in Shanghai, a result that arguably could have been third had Red Bull been more aggressive in the opening stanza of the race.

Verstappen left performance on the table on his first set of tyres, leaving him too much to do later in the race.

Even still, the fourth place drove home the difference between his performances and the struggling Lawson.

Speculation has already begun to swirl that Lawson will be ousted for the Japanese Grand Prix in favour of Yuki Tsunoda.

Franco Colapinto has also been linked with a move to Racing Bulls in place of Tsunoda, with Lawson dropped entirely.

There are even suggestions that a dispensation request has been submitted to the FIA to get Arvid Lindblad a Super Licence.

Lindbald has met the FIA’s criteria in terms of points but is five months short of the 18-year-old age restriction now in place.

Red Bull bosses Horner and Helmut Marko are set to meet in the coming days, with Lawson’s plight expected to be chief among the discussion points.

“Liam still has got potential, we’re just not realising that at the moment,” Horner insisted.

“The problem for him is he’s had a couple of really tough weekends, he’s got all the media on his back, the pressure just naturally grows in this business.

“I feel very sorry for him. You can see, it’s very tough for him at the moment.”

Complicating Lawson’s ordeal is that Red Bull is already more than two race wins behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship.

It was Red Bull’s slump in that competition that ultimately triggered Sergio Perez’s exit at the end of 2024 and opened the door for Lawson to step in alongside Verstappen.

Just three months on, Horner finds himself in an eerily similar position.

“McLaren prove to everybody last year is that you can have a troubled start to the year but still be very competitive,” Horner argued.

“We’re eight points behind in the drivers’, the constructors’ championship is a very tough ask and we need to make significant progress with the car in order to even challenge for that.

“And you have to have two cars scoring,” he added.

“That obviously hurts us badly last year in the constructors’ so we have to have two cars in there.

“Even to compete for the drivers, you’ve got to have another car in play, so it’s vitally important for the team to ensure that we have both drivers running as close to the front as we can.”