With just 11 races under his belt, Liam Lawson will become an expected Formula 1 frontrunner in F1 2025 as Red Bull have signed the Kiwi driver to replace Sergio Perez in their line-up – meaning Lawson will be racing alongside four-time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen for his first full season in the sport.
It’s a huge challenge for Lawson, who faces a steep learning curve alongside Verstappen as Red Bull expects to fight for the Constructors’ Championship once again in F1 2025.
Perez’s form alongside Verstappen crumbled away in 2024, with the Mexican scoring just a third of Verstappen’s points tally – a gulf between the drivers that meant the more consistent and equally-matched pairings at McLaren and Ferrari overcame Red Bull’s lead in the closing stages of the championship.
With such a gulf being unsustainable, Red Bull has taken the chance on promoting from within – Lawson has been part of the Red Bull driver programme since 2018, and impressed senior management when he had his chance to jump in at short notice and substitute for the injured Daniel Ricciardo in 2023.
Lawson eventually got the nod for a full-time replacement gig with Ricciardo dropped after this year’s Singapore Grand Prix, and his six-race audition – netting himself two points finishes along the way – has been enough for Red Bull to give him the nod ahead of his far more experienced teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
It’s in Lawson’s maturity and mental steeliness, as well as his pace and potential, that Red Bull believes him to be a better fit alongside Verstappen – such mental strength is needed to cope with Verstappen’s relentless performance, with former Red Bull junior talent like Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon unable to thrive alongside him while in their formative years.
Lawson’s unwavering self-belief is usually the first attribute pointed out about him when speaking to Red Bull staff, and the Kiwi driver shed some light on that inner confidence as he spoke with PlanetF1.com for an exclusive interview ahead of his Red Bull promotion.
“Self-doubt may be the wrong word,” he said when asked how he processes and deals with the moments where that confidence may be shaken – after all, he is being paired up with a driver who never shows any signs of any such doubt in himself.
“I firmly believe that nobody’s perfect, and as a driver, I’m not perfect.
“There are always things that I’m going to learn from and do better. So I would say I’m a self-critic of things that I can improve on.
“For example, these six races, I will look back on and look over them and go, ‘Okay, I could have done a better job here’, and ‘This wasn’t perfect’.
“You finish a qualifying lap and you think ‘I locked up a little bit here’, or ‘This wasn’t perfect’. So I’m very aware of my mistakes.
“But I think it’s important not to doubt yourself as a driver because, if you doubt your ability, I think that’s different from critiquing yourself with mistakes.”
A potentially decisive factor in how Lawson will fare in his first year at Red Bull is just how compatible he is with the RB21’s demands. The RB20 proved to have a very small performance window but, more importantly, the way the car handled and gave confidence to the drivers was something Perez struggled with more than Verstappen.
Last year, Albon opened up on why he struggled so much alongside Verstappen, saying: “I like a car that has a good front-end, so quite sharp, quite direct.
“Max does too, but his level of sharp and direct is a whole different level – it’s eye-wateringly sharp.
“To give people kind of maybe an explanation of what that might feel like, if you bump up the sensitivity [on a computer game] completely to the max and you move that mouse and it’s just darting across the screen everywhere, that’s kind of how it feels. It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little bit tense.”
With the Dutch driver going into his 10th season with the Milton Keynes-based squad, Red Bull is keenly aware of what Verstappen likes to feel from the car and, in his first year, Lawson will have to take time fettling it to what he enjoys.
Does Lawson believe his driving style overlaps in any meaningful way with Verstappen’s?
“In terms of driving styles, I don’t really know if I believe in it so much in terms of a driving style,” he said.
“I think you have certain things you like a car to do but I think also, for me, I spent a lot of time developing that car as well, as a junior and as a reserve for the last couple of years, and I feel like I understand quite well the way the car drives.
“But I also don’t fully believe in ‘This doesn’t suit your driving style’.
“I think as drivers, we’re professionals, we have to adapt to whatever we’re driving.”
His answer is matter-of-fact – direct and without leaving himself much wiggle room for the tough days which are sure to be sprinkled in next season. It’s the exact sort of frank honesty Red Bull gets from Verstappen – this is not a driver interested in hiding behind caveats and excuses.
But Gasly and Albon also probably didn’t think their time alongside Verstappen would play out the way it did – does Lawson feel he’s in a better position than they were?
“You can always look at it as an outsider and think ‘this is what it looks like they felt’,” he said.
“But I don’t know what it was like for them. I believe, for anybody to go up against Max, you have to be realistic and know that he’s the fastest guy on the grid right now, and that you’re not gonna be out-qualifying the guy by half a second.
“It’s not gonna be something that’s really gonna be happening. For me, it’s more the opportunity that’s there to learn from the best.”
It’s in the unfettered access to Verstappen’s data, and the ability to be able to glean what he needs from this information, that Lawson is salivating over.
“For me as a driver, to be able to go in against the guy who’s won four world championships and is well seasoned…. he’s been in that car for a long time,” he said.
“That car is almost… not developed around him, but he’s been a massive part of developing that car and understands it very well.
“In terms of how to drive it, it’s all right there on paper. When you see all the data that he brings in, for me as a driver to be alongside that, to be able to learn from him and have all that access, I think that’s what’s exciting for me about the opportunity.
Lawson has also shown thus far he is very capable of handling the intense pressure applied by Helmut Marko through his rise in the junior categories – another crucial aspect that not every personality can handle. With Christian Horner and Marko now overseeing him in the full glare of the F1 spotlight, Lawson believes this pressure stands him in good stead.
“If I don’t do a good job, they’re very accurate on explaining to me things I could do better. That’s what I’m here to do. I’m here to learn as well,” he said.
“It’s very early on for me, and I want to have a long future in Formula 1.
“So, for me, it’s important to have those conversations and be aware of things that I can improve on. I think, fortunately for a long time, especially having Helmut from a young age putting pressure and critiquing everything that you do as a driver, I think that’s helped build me into a stronger person to be able to deal with Formula 1.”
It’s been a whirlwind year for Lawson. Starting the season as reserve driver for the two Red Bull outfits, there was a lot of uncertainty coming into it – especially with Perez then being given a two-year contract extension. Ricciardo and Tsunoda at VCARB suggested there wasn’t going to be any way in for Lawson, but that changed when Ricciardo failed to show enough of his old form and convince Red Bull he still had it.
The first step was getting that audition – six races isn’t a lot, but the Kiwi didn’t flub his lines. Showing enough of the grit and strength that put him a fraction ahead of Tsunoda in the pecking order, Lawson now has the opportunity to carve out a proper F1 career – and he’s got one of the best cars with which to do so.
Alongside that is the celebrity factor. At a time when F1 has never been more popular in the mainstream, Lawson will become a bona fide household name over the next 12 months.
Not that he’s in any way fazed by the additional adulation and inevitable negativity that lie in wait for him.
“If you ask [Max or Lewis], I would say that their answer would be that they are more of a driver than a celebrity,” he said.
“If anybody’s answer is they’re more a celebrity than a driver, then they’re in the wrong sport. Obviously, I know it comes with the job here.
“I know that it’s part of being an F1 driver, especially the higher up you go and the more successful you are.
“That’s a part of the sport but, obviously, we’re all focused on on winning races, and that’s really, I would say, what we’re focused on.”
