Lawson has struggled in his two races with the team with significant pressure mounting on the young New Zealander.
A meeting involving team bosses Christian Horner and Helmut Marko in Dubai, home of Red Bull’s major shareholder Chalerm Yoovidhya, on Tuesday is understood to have broached the 22-year-old’s future.
Reports in the Dutch press claim the outcome of those conversations was to replace Lawson with Tsunoda from next weekend.
However, sources have told Speedcafe that no call has yet been made, and a decision would only come later in the week.
Lawson was handed the Red Bull drive after impressing bosses during his time alongside Tsunoda at RB last season.
While the Kiwi was out-paced by his teammate during their six races together, it was felt he offered a higher performance ceiling.
That’s a belief born from the fact there was little between them despite the gulf in experience; Tsunoda this year is in his fifth full season of F1, while Lawson lined up in Melbourne with only 11 races under his belt.
The New Zealander was also thought to have a better temperament and personality which would allow him to slot in alongside Max Verstappen at the senior team more readily.
However, his performances so far this season have been underwhelming.
He qualified 20th in the three qualifying sessions so far this season and crashed out in tricky conditions in Australia.
Though he has raced forward in China, he’s yet to get off the mark in terms of points.
Meanwhile, Verstappen sits second in the drivers’ championship, eight points behind Lando Norris at the top of the standings.
Red Bull is already more than 50 points behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship despite the season being only two races old.
“McLaren proved to everybody last year is that you can have a troubled start to the year but still be very competitive,” Horner said of Red Bull’s title chances.
“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.”
The Japanese Grand Prix marks both the home race for the Honda-supported Tsunoda, and the first familiar venue for Lawson who’d never raced in Melbourne or Shanghai previously.
He spent the 2023 season racing in Japan, where he finished second in the Super Formula series.
He also appeared at that year’s Japanese Grand Prix, one of five cameos in place of the injured Daniel Ricciardo.
Tsunoda has sampled only Red Bull machinery once, driving for the squad at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi at the end of last year.
The Japanese driver is in good form, finishing only three seconds from the points in Melbourne before opening his account in China with sixth in the Sprint.
He then struck drama in the race itself when a front wing failure dropped him down the order making his 19th place finish unrepresentative of his performance.
Should the move come, it would mark a brutal exit for Lawson who is in turn expected to replace Tsunoda at Racing Bulls.
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