Yuki Tsunoda breaks silence amid reports he's set to replace Liam Lawson at Red Bull ahead of Japanese GP

Yuki Tsunoda dropped a very timely Instagram post on Tuesday evening, following the reports that he would be replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull for the Japanese Grand Prix.

On Tuesday evening, Dutch outlet De Telegraaf announced that Tsunoda will be taking Lawson's seat at Red Bull for the third round of the F1 season in Japan.

The report claims that the decision was reached after a meeting in Dubai on Tuesday, however, Red Bull is yet to confirm the swap with the BBC reporting a full announcement will come later this week.

Max Verstappen has been left unimpressed by the decision to demote Lawson after just two races, with the Dutchman believing Red Bull's 2025 car is the real problem.

"The Dutchman believes the engineers have a duty to build a racing car that can be driven to the limit by more than just the four-time world champion," F1 Insider wrote.

Following Tuesday evening news, Tsunoda took to Instagram prompting fans to flood to his account to see if the news of his promotion had been confirmed.

However, the 24-year-old was clearly playing games with his supporters as it was simply a humorous photo dump from his weekend with Racing Bulls in China.

Tsunoda captioned the post 'China were my new sunglasses were a hit' accompanied with photos of him, Isack Hadjar, and members of the RB team in Yuki's shades.

Despite the lack of a cryptic message from Tsunoda, fans in the comment section only had one topic to discuss.

One fan commented: "Yuki in Japan puts this Redbull Top 5."

Another replied: If the rumours are true a huge congratulations, totally deserved and it should have gone to you last season."

Both Tsunoda and Lawson were quizzed on the potential driver swap during the Chinese GP weekend, with Lawson firmly believing he has the edge over his former teammate.

"I've raced him for years, raced him in junior categories, and beat him. And I did in F1 as well, so he can say whatever he wants," Lawson told reporters.