Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda are "up to the challenge" of driving at Red Bull, says VCARB's CEO Peter Bayer.

One of the current VCARB drivers is set to step into the senior team at Red Bull Racing for F1 2025, with Sergio Perez making way for either Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda.

With Red Bull's immediate focus after Abu Dhabi being on the nature of the split with Perez, figuring out which of the current VCARB drivers is the more appropriate fit for the seat alongside Max Verstappen is the next hurdle to clear.

The highly-rated Liam Lawson will have completed just 11 races after this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, having done five races as a substitute for the injured Daniel Ricciardo in 2023 before stepping in as a full-time replacement after this year's Singapore Grand Prix.

Lawson's six-race stint is understood to be an audition to figure out where to place him for 2025, with a vacant seat at VCARB still yet to be filled, as well as the possibility of stepping up to race alongside Verstappen.

PlanetF1.com understands Lawson, despite his inexperience relative to Tsunoda, is currently the favourite for Perez's seat, but VCARB CEO Peter Bayer believes Tsunoda is also ready to deliver should he be given the nod.

"He's made a huge step compared to last year, physically, and mentally, you can tell that he's sort of converging toward the pinnacle of what he's capable of," Bayer told PlanetF1.com at the Qatar Grand Prix.

"Clearly, his performances this year have been critically important for the team as he's scoring most of the points this year, and I think he is an important part of this team."

Tsunoda has scored 30 of VCARB's 46 point tally, keeping the Faenza-based squad in the hunt for sixth place in the Constructors' Championship heading into the final race.

Asked if the Japanese driver, who is as known for his fiery radio outbursts as he is for his strong points finishes, is ready to drive for a front-running team like Red Bull, Bayer said: "Yes, I think he is ready to make a step up to race for Red Bull Racing.

"Ultimately, our job is to be an incubator for talent. Yuki has gone through an excellent education with Franz [Tost, former team boss at VCARB/AlphaTauri] and now with Laurent [Mekies, current VCARB team boss] and the team.

"I certainly think he's ready. Sometimes, perhaps, it's difficult for him still to control his emotions. It is something that he's working on, but I think that's his last tiny fault, really, and, everything else, I'd say he's one of the top drivers on the grid."

With Tsunoda assuming a team leadership-adjacent role at the second Red Bull team this year as the replaced Daniel Ricciardo struggled to match him, while Lawson has proven to be capable of strikingly similar performances despite his inexperience, Bayer said he doesn't view Tsunoda as being the de facto head of his line-up.

"I don't think he's a team leader – I think we see our two drivers as equal," he said, "and clearly he's a bit more experienced now than Liam and so on and so forth.

"But we're treating both of them in the very same way."

Asked whether he believes Tsunoda would be able to adjust to a very different dynamic as being Verstappen's teammate in a more secondary role at Red Bull, Bayer said it's very easy to "fall into a trap" of trying to keep up with the four-time F1 World Champion.

"As far as racing next to Max, the other day I saw a really interesting interview with Alex Albon [a former teammate of Verstappen at Red Bull], where people were asking Alex, 'So how is it to drive against Max?'," he said.

"And he said that it's actually not the driving against Max. You're just driving with someone who's got the same car as you, but he's able to set that car up in a way that it becomes so aggressive that you have to be like a perfectionist in every single turn.

"If you're not doing that, you'll miss the target. I think that's the real challenge.

"You can either find your own way, set the car up, and try to be successful. But then, I guess it's very tempting as a driver to look next, to the other garage, and say, 'Oh, but okay, he's a second faster. I want the same setup'.

"Okay, we give you the same setup… and you're nowhere.

"I think that you need to be strong and I think it's important that somebody is very strong-minded and you need to be mature to not fall into that trap, I think."

"If an opportunity presented itself, I think Yuki, as Liam… they're both up to the challenge, honestly, I'm confident."