Liam Lawson refuses to make excuses for his poor start to the season at Red Bull, but admits he would have benefited from more pre-season running in one of the team’s cars.
Red Bull announced its decision to promote Lawson in place of Sergio Perez after the end of last season. Lawson spent the last six races of 2024 driving for their second team, now known as Racing Bulls.However given the specific handling characteristics of Red Bull’s chassis, which other drivers have struggled with, Lawson said he would have benefited from more running in one of their older cars. Other rookies such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Jack Doohan benefited from extensive testing programmes in their teams’ older cars.
Earlier in the Chinese Grand Prix weekend Lawson remarked he ‘needs time and doesn’t have a lot’. While this was taken by some as an indication Red Bull is already considering whether to replace him, Lawson said he was referring to the limited track time he has in their cars.
“We’re in the season, we’re two races in and we’re racing,” he told Sky. “It’s something that you’d love to have, 60 test days and things like that, and I know a lot of the other guys tested a lot out of season.
“Unfortunately, it’s not something we did. It’s not something we can do in this [year’s] car anyway. So it’s just one of those things, it’s not an excuse, it’s just something that I’ve got to get on top of as quickly as I can.”
Lawson qualified last for both races in Shanghai. He opted to start the grand prix from the pit lane in order to make changes to his car’s suspension. However he said this did not improve the car for him and he felt more competitive in the sprint race.
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“We tried to do something quite aggressive today with the set-up,” he said. “That’s why we started from the pit lane, mostly to learn something and get an idea.
“I think we definitely learned something and it just didn’t work today. Looking at the sprint yesterday, we were a lot more competitive, able to overtake cars and stuff. Today it was just a lot more difficult so it’s something we’ll learn from but obviously there’s plenty that I’ve got to work on personally as well.”
“The direction we went today was to basically […] make the car a bit easier in a lot of ways and just help the balance,” he explained. “But unfortunately it just went the wrong way and it made the car just a lot slower, basically. So it’s the way it is and it’s something I’ve got to get my head around.”
Lawson finished the grand prix in 15th place, 20 seconds outside of the points places.
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Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
23rd March 2025, 10:05
Gasly, Albon, Perez or Lawson are not the problem. The problem is Max is The GOAT and he squeezes 100% out of his car basically in 99% of all sessions during the season. If you can beat him on pace even once, like Perez was doing in Baku last year, it’s an amazing achievement. Max is doing exactly the same as Schumacher in 1996 and 1997 – extracting everything from midfield cars, while their team mates (Lawson and Irvine respectively) look completely out of their depth. It’s not Max’s fault he’s ridiculously talented and every single driver on the grid (yes, that includes Norris, Piastri, Hamilton, Leclerc, Russell etc.) would struggle to even match him.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
23rd March 2025, 10:15
I haven’t done a Google search, but has anyone interviewed Perez yet?
I would be interested to hear his take on this.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 13:46
I haven’t found anything, looked for it a few times, however I remember a comment late last year where he said he wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the next red bull driver, and indeed, if anything it’s going worse than it went for him.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
23rd March 2025, 14:52
Took a little look myself but didn’t try hard to be honest.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he has signed a 12 month NDA kind of thing.
That’s not paranoia – it is pretty standard stuff when quitting contracts these days.
Have to wait for the Biographical novel I suppose ;)
GT Racer (@gt-racer)
23rd March 2025, 11:16
There are stories going around the paddock saying that Lawson is going to be replaced by Tsunoda for the Japanese GP.
Also suggestions that after Tsunoda did that test for Red Bull at the end of last year that a lot of the engineering staff were pushing for Tsunoda to be given the drive as they were of the opinion that he was more ready for the opportunity than Lawson was.
Feeling is that Lawson does have the raw speed but that he simply isn’t ready for a top line seat right now and that in rushing him into the drive now they are just going to end up hurting him in the same way they did Kvyat, Gasly & Albon who were all in hindsight moved into the main team before they were ready for it.
HAL
23rd March 2025, 11:29
Agreed… Lawson was closed to Tsunoda out of the box, being thrown in that car mid season – I understand why RedBull management concluded that there was more potential in him. But it remains he very inexperienced with only 2 “5 GPs” stint over 2 seasons – so to put him in the RB for 1 season before promoting him would have been logical.
And they could have tried Tsunoda who took his time to mature, but has now reached a pretty decent level. Looks like that’s going to happen soon.
debaser91
23rd March 2025, 13:31
Everybody, and I mean literally everybody was saying it was a bad idea to promote Lawson and that he would get swallowed up at Red Bull, it isn’t hindsight speaking here, it wasn’t a hard call at the time and still they went with LL.
But given you have promoted him, it is really unfair to drop him after two races when Perez underperformed for two seasons. Checo was out loads of times last year in Q1.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 13:47
The difference is: perez was decent his first 1,5 seasons in red bull, lawson was slow since the start, like gasly.
Even albon was decent his first half season, but then he also got worse.
Doggy
23rd March 2025, 13:39
If this happens, it will safe Lawson’s f1 career and destroy Yuki’s
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 13:48
Assuming someone wants a driver who qualifies last with a good car, I wouldn’t.
Doggy
23rd March 2025, 18:43
It will be a swap.
Lawson proofed himself last year with Yuki as his teammate
An Sionnach
23rd March 2025, 14:15
Normally, I’d say give the driver more time. He’s more familiar with Suzuka and may do better. Pérez would have made much better progress in the race, though. It looks like Lawson cannot drive this car at all. It might be doing him a favour to swap them around. The car is too skittish for most drivers. They could give Tsunoda, Hadjar and then everyone else on the grid a go in it. I’d love to see who else could drive it. Perhaps nobody?
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd March 2025, 15:51
Interesting. And typically Red Bull (Marko, really – he seems to have some kind of dislike of Tsunoda – i hope it’s not simply about being Japanese). No surprise at all if they realise now that it was to early for Lawson, that’s what most people looking in from the outside told them immediately.
ianhaycox (@ianhaycox)
23rd March 2025, 12:10
Lawson refuses to make excuses, but then goes on to blame lack of testing and car setup.
I just don’t buy this ‘only Max can drive the car’. Every racing car can be setup to understeer, oversteer, whatever.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
23rd March 2025, 13:50
Yes, ricciardo was capable of driving the same red bulls verstappen drove properly and perez in 2021 and first half of 2022 at least decently, these drivers who failed lacked experience too, apart from perez who got worse the longer he stayed at red bull.
Franky
23rd March 2025, 14:28
Does anybody else, apart from me, thinks that the problem might not be just the driver but the team focus? This RB team is focused, now even more, at least 75% on their no. 1 driver, not being a bad idea, but their no. 2 driver does not stand a chance at all. N. 2 driver is just being a test mule for the team. And all this theatre of giving him the same tools as Max is just for the media. In the end they just crunch drivers as potato chips. No wonder why Sainz didn’t even consider getting there, did he have a chat in Spanish with Perez?
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd March 2025, 15:54
Well, I mean, the only driver that did better really was Ricciardo who was the dream kid himself before getting usurped by Max coming up and to an extent Perez in his first 2,5 seasons really. Kviat, Gasly, Albon, Lawson – all examples of drivers being thrown in the deep end and without any support from the team (if we discount the openly critical words from Marko as such) showing that just doesn’t work for most drivers.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
23rd March 2025, 15:11
Red Bull have been through too many poor number 2 drivers now for this to continue. Max is their main focus, this 100% is a logical choice as he is monster of a talent. However, you can’t have failure after failure in that second seat.
The Red Bull isn’t fast enough for Max to win on his own, he’s going to need a number 2 to block the McLarens from time to time, or better yet get P2 if RBR ace a weekend. At the moment their second driver is a pit stop behind after 10 laps.
Is it to do with driver management? Car Setup? Sabotage? Another factor? Because at the moment their midfield level drivers are making the pay drivers of old look good
Franky
23rd March 2025, 15:51
For me it is water clear, it is strategy. I mean not to be that low but they use the second driver to test alternate setups, strategies, to feed data to Max’s engineers, etc. This has been clear since they abandoned the real intra team competition when Riccardo left. After that everything has been Max focused. And since the decline of competitiveness with the departure of Newey it just got worse. My theory is as good as anybody else’s.
dutchtreat (@dutchtreat)
23rd March 2025, 16:16
I like Lawson’s approach. I am sure he will improve. He knows Suzuka so may go better.
Chaz (@chaz)
23rd March 2025, 17:20
I have been rooting for him just the same as I root for all the drivers to do well. When Horner says “Red Bull will do its best to support him”, you know its the beginning of the end. What a shame for Liam. I hope he can pull it out of the bag.