Liam Lawson has finally addressed the whirlwind start to his 2025 Formula 1 campaign, from being dropped by Red Bull Racing after just two Grands Prix, to quietly rebuilding his career with Racing Bulls.
Now halfway through the season, the 23-year-old Kiwi is showing strong form and believes the early judgments on his performance were premature.
“I mean, it’s a bit weird to have a second to reflect. It’s been a very busy couple of months with six weeks and five race weekends,” Lawson told F1.com.
“To have a bit of time… It’s important to think about how everything’s been.”
Lawson began the season as Red Bull Racing’s second driver, earning a seat alongside Max Verstappen after strong substitute performances for AlphaTauri/Racing Bulls in 2023 and a solid close to 2024. But after Q1 exits and no points in Australia and China, both tracks he had never raced at, he was swiftly moved back to Racing Bulls.
He described the Red Bull opportunity as a “lifelong dream” that ended almost before it began. Still, he’s remained resilient and focused on progress.
“I think recently, performance-wise, it’s been our strongest phase,” Lawson said.
“The car’s been fast, and I’ve also been probably at a level that I wasn’t quite at before that.”
“I would say there hasn’t been enough points scored, for sure. Austria was great, but it’s not enough. We need to be doing stuff like that as much as we can. I think the consistency is what’s been tough.
“Obviously the start of the year, [we had] the big shake-up with the team switch, and then not really having the time to get to grips with things, racing every weekend, and trying to be at the level that I need to be at. It’s been a lot.”
One has to wonder: has Lawson really had time to make sense of it all?
“Honestly, not really – not yet,” he says.
“I think now it’s not quite… I think the summer break is the time everybody mentally switches off, at least for a week or so.
“We all know we have a couple more races coming up before then. You’re still in that mindset, you’re still thinking about what just happened, how we’re going to improve in the next couple of races, and how I’m going to improve myself. You’re just in it.
“It’s nice to have a bit of time to breathe, but mentally I’m thinking about Belgium and Hungary that are coming up, and trying to go into that break with a good couple of races.”
Since returning to the Red Bull junior team, Lawson has been steadily rebuilding. He’s scored points, impressed in qualifying, and proved he’s still very much capable of competing in Formula 1. But despite the tough start, he’s adamant that his self-belief was never shaken.
“It’s been very heavily speculated that my confidence took a hit and stuff like this, which is completely false,” he said.
“From the start of the year, I felt the same as I always have.”
“I think in two races, on tracks I’d never been to, it’s not really enough for my confidence… maybe six months into a season, if I’m still at that level, if the results are still like that, then I’d be feeling something – maybe my confidence would be taking a hit.
“But I was just focused on improving, fixing and learning, basically. I was in the same mindset as I have been since I came into F1.”
Lawson insists that external chatter around his mental state didn’t affect him, but he admits he deliberately tuned out the noise.
“I haven’t really talked much about it, because I think for a big part of this year, I’ve just ignored everything that happened, and I’ve just focused on trying to drive the car,” he said.
“But I know there was a lot of stuff that went out that was speculation about how I was feeling. My confidence hasn’t changed since the start of the year to now.”
Even during his brief Red Bull stint, the deck was stacked against him. Limited testing, unfamiliar circuits, a sprint format, and of course, Verstappen in the other car; it was a steep mountain to climb.
“I was well aware that those results weren’t good enough, but I was just focused on improving,” he said.
“I think that was the biggest thing going into a team like that, in a car like that… it was going to take a bit of time to adjust and learn.”
“With no proper testing, the issues in testing, the issues in Melbourne through practice… it wasn’t smooth and clean. I needed time, and I wasn’t given it.”
That insight might ring familiar to fans, after all, Lawson isn’t the first to struggle with Red Bull’s notoriously sharp-handling car. Sergio Perez has had a turbulent time next to Verstappen, and Yuki Tsunoda, who replaced Lawson after two races, hasn’t exactly flourished in the role either.
When asked about how the Racing Bulls car compares to the main Red Bull, Lawson was clear.
“It does feel different, definitely. I think it’s maybe not what everyone expects, but it is definitely a different feeling to drive.”
“The window that the [Racing Bulls] guys have at the moment is very, very good.”
At Racing Bulls, his progress has been visible. After modest finishes through the Japan-to-Imola stretch, he broke into Q3 in Monaco. He played a key role in the team’s double-points strategy. Then came Austria: Lawson qualified sixth and finished sixth, one of his best weekends yet.
“No breakthroughs, just gradual build-up,” Lawson said of the run to Austria.
“It showed a little bit of what’s been building for a while, but also what needs to be coming more frequently.”
“We’ve gone to a lot of tracks… Monaco, we were very strong in practice; Barcelona, strong in practice; Canada, strong in practice. Then you go to Qualifying, and little things make a difference.”
“It’s not good enough, because the results haven’t been coming consistently enough, but the speed itself has been quite good.”
Achieving that consistency is arguably as difficult as it has ever been in F1.
With an incredibly small field spread in the closing stages of the sport’s current ruleset, it means just a few hundredths of a second can be the difference between a painful Q1 exit and the elation of reaching Q3.
“F1 in general is very, very close right now,” he said.
“You’re trying to find half a tenth here and half a tenth there… one tiny error can knock you out.”
Still, the Racing Bulls car has given him confidence.
“The car’s consistently been quite strong recently. I think we’re in a good place, and we’re just trying to keep the trajectory going upwards.”
Despite having only 23 race starts, Lawson has matured quickly in the sport. With 12 rounds still to go, he isn’t focused on a long-term plan, just getting the most out of every weekend.
“It is [about the here and now] at the moment, yeah,” he said. “You come in and there are so many races… You almost get lost in this world.”
“You come out of a race weekend, especially on a triple-header, have a day to think about what just happened, and then you’re straight away thinking about the next race. I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but you just think about F1, the performance and the result.”
Now, as the summer break approaches, Lawson is determined to end the first half of the season on a high at the Belgian and Hungarian Grand Prix.
Header Image: Andy Hone/LAT Images via Red Bull Content Pool
