Liam Lawson's Red Bull Exit | F1 2025
The New Waves of Rookies
2025 feels like the year of the rookie in F1. Six new drivers on the grid across six different teams. It's the most rookies we've seen on the grid in a long time. Even though Ollie Bearman and Liam Lawson have completed multiple F1 races before the start of this year, I still consider them rookies because neither have completed a full F1 season yet.
This sport isn't an easy place even for the most experienced of drivers though. No seat is guaranteed. But it's worse for the rookies, who, whilst achieving their dreams, are still fighting to keep their seat. Every race is a chance to impress their bosses and the rest of the paddock. A good (or bad) rookie season can set the tone for the rest of their careers. In the era of cost caps and limited testing time, these rookies have to contend with even more. The margin to make mistakes is small, and there isn't much time to prepare for your debut.
Lawson: A Red Bull Driver in the Making
If there's any rookie that has understood how hard a debut season can be then it's most definitely Liam Lawson. The young kiwi driver has been a part of the Red Bull Junior Team for years. The team have helped him through his junior career. After leaving F2, Lawson carried on as a reserve driver for Red Bull and their sister team, AlphaTauri (later Visa Cash App RB). Alongside that, he also took part in the Super Formula Championship in Japan. He had an incredible season there, becoming vice-champion. In that same season he was called on for his reserve duties. After AlphaTauri had dropped Nyck De Vries, and Daniel Ricciardo had injured himself, Lawson became an F1 driver for five races in 2023. In 2024, when Ricciardo left the sport after the Singapore Grand Prix, Lawson took part in the remaining races.
The Battle for the Second Seat
The end of the 2024 season had sparked some interesting questions. Mainly, what was going to happen with the second Red Bull seat? Red Bull was publically saying that Sergio Perez wasn't going anywhere. There was a lot of talk in the paddock, however, that was saying the opposite. Perez's performances weren't up to scratch and the team opted to replace him after the season had finished.
The new question was, who was going to take his place? It was always going to be a toss between Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson. For those who wanted Tsunoda, the argument was that he had shown a vast improvement during the 2024 season, had taken a large leadership role in the team since Pierre Gasly had left and had matured as a driver. For Lawson though, the argument was that he had adjusted to F1 quickly after being called up for reserve duties and it was more likely that Lawson would be the future of Red Bull. Why not just put him in the seat now when they weren't looking to keep Tsunoda in the long term? The decision didn't take long to be made, and it was Liam Lawson that was going' to pair up with Max Verstappen for the 2025 season.
It was a stint that wasn't meant to last long. After only two races in 2025, Red Bull decided to drop Lawson. They made a direct swap with Tsunoda. Most people agreed that two races didn't seem like enough time for Lawson to settle into the seat. The writing seemed to be on the wall from the Australian Grand Prix, though. The very first race on the calendar. Lawson exited in Q1 and then failed to score points on his Red Bull debut. China was a sprint weekend and he exited in both SQ1 and Q1 and didn't score points in the sprint or the race.
Did Red Bull Help Lawson Prepare?
Some people have made the argument that Lawson's already driven 11 races before this season. That should have been plenty of time in an F1 car. Plenty of time for him to produce better results. I think there are two important points that need to be made here with that argument. The first is that those weren't 11 consecutive races. The second being that those 11 races were in a very different car. Even though VCARB and Red Bull are sister teams, the cars drive in a different way with the performance being very different.
Maybe Red Bull could have excused Lawson's results if Max Verstappen hadn't qualified in the top ten and scored points across two races and the sprint. It looked like it was becoming less of car problem and more of a Lawson problem. At least that seemed to be Red Bull's line of thinking. There's no denying, though, that there are fundamental issues with the car. Verstappen and the whole Red Bull team have been quite open with the fact that the car isn't easy to drive and isn't behaving like it should. So, with that in mind, shouldn't they have allowed him more time?
Kimi Antonelli had a huge testing programme put in place for him before he made his F1 debut. Any time that Mercedes was able to put him in a previous F1 car, they did. That experience, and amount of testing time, is why Antonelli has come into this season with a level head and scoring points in his first three races.
There is something else at play here that Antonelli has that Lawson seemed to lack. A supportive team. Much like Lawson, Antonelli was a part of a junior programme for his respective team. Mercedes nurtured him through his junior career, helping him grow as a driver. They supported him without putting him under too much pressure and they're now seeing the results of that. Red Bull doesn't seem to give that same level of support to their junior drivers and it's causing drivers like Liam Lawson to fail before they're really given a chance.
Red Bull's reason from swapping Lawson
It's important to point out that Christian Horner, Team Principal of Red Bull, has said that the team needed to "act quickly" for Lawson's sake.
"It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the RB21 at the first two races and, as a result, we have collectively taken the decision to make an early switch." He continued to say, "We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well." But the question for me is did they not think beforehand that this swap was too early? That Liam hadn't been given enough of a chance to develop as a driver before being given that chance in the main Red Bull seat?
I don't think it will be too much of a stretch to say that this is a move that will dent Lawson's confidence somewhat. A chance he was given, so quickly taken away. And there's no timeline on when and if he'll be given that promotion again. For Lawson, he's going to be spending at least this season rebuilding his confidence and proving to Christian Horner and Helmut Marko that he deserves that seat.
One thing is for sure though, that second Red Bull seat seems to be cursed.