The dust of ruthlessness had barely settled for 24 hours before Liam Lawson made his feelings known. Brutally ousted from Red Bull after two races this season – the shortest ever stint in a full-time Formula One seat – the New Zealander posted on Instagram a drawing from his childhood, depicting him as an F1 driver decked in blue. “It’s what I’ve worked towards my whole life,” the caption read.
Only the most unsympathetic of observers could not have felt a dose of compassion. But now, for the first time in his disorderly F1 career, the 23-year-old is settled. In fact, Lawson is in the midst of a fine stretch of form for Red Bull’s sister team, Racing Bulls, and comes into this weekend in Singapore off the back of a career-best fifth place in Azerbaijan last time out. The only question now, with a 2026 seat far from certain, is: how long will that last?
“My time in F1 has never been, let’s say… simple,” Lawson tells The Independent. “The first year (2023) was five races. Last year was six races. It’s always been about trying to get up to speed with the car.
“Now, I’m in a rhythm and routine where I know the direction the car is going. The speed has been good. And everyone on this team is very positive and optimistic.”
In many ways, Lawson’s 28 F1 races to date, spread across three seasons, are indicative of a career where battling through obstacles ahead has been the key component to his success. Even his first experience in a go-kart, aged seven, saw no immediate signs of star potential.
“In my first year, I finished last consistently, literally at the back of the field all to myself – my car sucked,” he says. But he remembers vividly the day it all changed.
“I was in an endurance race at Hamilton karting track. It was a national event, and I went from last to first. All that time at the back by myself taught me to extract every little thing out of the kart.
“I remember looking at my dad (Jared) before the race, knowing that this was the moment to find out whether I was genuinely s*** or actually any good. But that was the moment it got a lot more serious for me – and expensive!”
Fast-forward a decade or so, and Lawson landed a spot in Red Bull’s prestigious junior programme. Midway through 2023, he was handed a chance so many crave when Daniel Ricciardo injured his hand in Zandvoort. He even secured a top-10 finish a few races later in the humidity of Singapore, making an impressive statement, before being told a week later by Helmut Marko that he would not have a drive for 2024.
No matter. Once again, it was Lawson who replaced Ricciardo – now permanently dropped – at the back-end of last season. And, sure enough, Lawson scored points on his second debut in Austin before a moment of hot-headedness triggered a middle finger gesture to Sergio Perez – whom he would replace at Red Bull – at the Mexican’s home race.
“That just shows the emotion and the commitment of what we as drivers all work towards,” says Lawson, playing down his fiery side. Yet with his ignominious two-and-out stint at Red Bull at the start of this season, he is more forthcoming.
“I was naive when I went into the team,” he acknowledges now, six months on. “I thought I’d be given time. So going into Australia and China (the first two races), with hindsight, there’s things I’d do differently. But they were two tracks I’d never raced at before, and one was a sprint weekend.
“If I’d known China would be my last race, my approach to that weekend and the setup of the car would have been very different. I wouldn’t have taken the gamble I did on a car that was very different to what we’d been working on.”
It’s at this moment in the chat when, bang on cue, we hear Max Verstappen over a microphone in Red Bull’s “energy station” motorhome, in conversation with a group of journalists. If ever a microcosm was needed for the driver hierarchy here, this was it.
“It’s OK,” Lawson says, unperturbed by the interruption. “Max is quiet.” In decibels on media day, perhaps, but as we all know, less so on the racetrack. Lawson was not the first Red Bull driver to come a cropper alongside the four-time world champion and, as illustrated by Yuki Tsunoda’s shortcomings, he won’t be the last.
Yet the forays of Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly show F1 careers can be rebuilt despite the wielding of Red Bull’s axe. Mercifully, Lawson was not booted out of the sport altogether, and the Kiwi racer has now registered top-10 finishes in four of his last seven races. Nonetheless, a contract for 2026 is yet to be agreed, with teammate Isack Hadjar next in line to move up to F1’s poisoned chalice and rumours of promotions for F2 drivers Arvid Lindblad and Alex Dunne, who on Thursday cut ties with McLaren.
But to shift Lawson on again, amid a streak of consistency, would be another cut-throat call. Like most of the field, he still harbours ambitions of becoming a world champion down the line, and it’s an ambition he has not been afraid to vocalise. And as starry-eyed a goal it might seem, it is not one he is willing to forego just yet.
“You want top-10 finishes, and it’s a box ticked,” he says. “Podiums and winning races would be great too. But ultimately, the goal has always been the same, and until I’m not racing, it will always be the same.
“All of us drivers work our whole lives together, but we’re all here for the same reason.”
