Max Verstappen’s future might have been the focus of much great attention during much of this summer, but it was the seat alongside him that was at the center of Formula 1 gossip at the end of last season.
Sergio Perez’s drop-off in form coincided with Red Bull’s own decline, but the team decided it was time for an expensive clean break, opting to promote Liam Lawson over the more experienced Yuki Tsunoda at the time.
Lawson had shown plenty of ability, pace and strong racecraft, but was lacking experiece: he’d made just 11 F1 starts over two years when he got the call-up. Red Bull gave him just two rounds alongside Verstappen before deciding it had made a mistake.
It’s so much that the team erred in selecting Lawson, but promoting him so soon when the car was clearly problematic was a misstep. Perez’s situation had shown that a high-quality experienced driver alone wasn’t going to be enough to guarantee results, but it either needed to be far more patient, or remove the uncertainty of a driver who was still developing.
Lawson went back to Racing Bulls, and admits he had little time to understand what was going wrong at Red Bull.
“It’s been a very busy year, a very rocky year, just not obviously what we planned it to be,” Lawson tells RACER. “But there’s just been a lot of races and it moves very quickly and to be honest, I’d say I haven’t properly fully reflected on everything this year.
“Maybe I’ll do that in the break or maybe not; maybe I’ll do it at the end of the year. I don’t know.
“It’s something that I will reflect on probably, and it’s easy for my brain to go there, even now, and just think about little things, what could have been different. But at the same time I try not to think about that and just focus on the car I’m driving right now, trying to extract everything out of it.”
In fairness to Red Bull, it provided Lawson with an environment to in which to rebuild reputation – although it could be argued it was Red Bull’s that took more of a hit – and was greeted with open arms when he returned to Racing Bulls. The team made a point of celebrating his arrival to make Lawson feel valued, and the New Zealander says it was easy to feel settled again.
“That’s the thing, at the same time I didn’t really leave for very long, so it didn’t feel like a big transition,” he said. “It’s more getting used to driving a car that’s different than the one I’d been preparing to drive all season.
“And I guess fortunately because I only did a couple of races in the other car, it wasn’t too difficult to adapt to. But the people are very similar – it’s the same people that I’ve been working with the last few years. And in general on both sides of the team, as a reserve I was spending lots of time with Red Bull anyway, so I have quite a good relationship.
“I would say I have a good understanding of both teams, between which one I’m driving, it’s not so different. It’s more just about the car that I’m driving and trying to drive it as fast as I can.”
Not that the seat swap between Lawson and Tsunoda was the end of the upheaval at the Italian-based team, with team principal Laurent Mekies taking over at Red Bull last month, and Alan Permane being promoted in Mekies’ place.
That change came as Lawson was turning promise into results once again, finishing sixth in Austria and then eighth in each of the two races before the summer break to bring his points tally to 20.
Lawson went into the August break with three point-scoring finishes from his last four starts. Zak Mauger/Getty Images
“He’s done a great job, honestly,” Permane says. “Two races at Red Bull, obviously, were very tough for him. He won’t thank me for saying this, but he definitely was a bit downbeat. He didn’t have a spring in his step, and we’ve done what we can to help him there.
“To jump in our car straight away without having tested it was, of course, not easy. He’s up against Isack [Hadjar] who has been outstanding this year. First race for him was Japan and Isack was absolutely flying there. So, it’s a tough introduction for him, but we’ve made some changes. He’s worked hard. Him and his engineering team have worked really, really hard.
“We had a bit of a breakthrough in Austria. We had a new front suspension for him, which they developed through the simulator, and he really liked it, was really enthusiastic about it, and it worked there. We saw in Spa again, he’s performing. You could see after that race… Monaco was a decent race for him, but Austria, he had a spring back in his step.”
Having long maintained his confidence never took a hit, Lawson has since admitted he was rocked by the rapid change of teams. But the 23-year-old does see the positives of having to go through such a scenario at this stage of his career.
“Ultimately yeah, any time anybody has something to overcome, an obstacle to overcome, that’s going to basically develop you more,” he says. “It’s going to teach you more, and for sure these last couple of years, especially going into this year, it’s probably been the most challenging. But I would say as a driver I’ve obviously learnt a lot through it, and ultimately that always obviously helps you in the future anyway.
“And I think it’s a good way to approach it as well, is to try and remember that you’re on your own path, trying to obviously build my future and that’s what I’m focused on and everything along the way is helping build that.
“It’s important for me to have these races, but it’s more important to have them more consistently and we need to keep having them. I think it’s been very cool to have a couple of good results, but the target is to have them frequently. That’s crucial for us.”
What makes those point-scoring results all the more impressive are they have come on tracks that Lawson had not raced in Formula 1 before. Given his two years making substitute appearances, he feels like a longer-term figure in the sport than his 25 starts suggests, but Zandvoort will only be the second track he has previously driven in F1 machinery this season, after Suzuka.
After the summer break, Baku is the single venue that Lawson hasn’t made a grand prix start at previously, and although he warns of how close the field is, he hopes its experience that can help him continue his recent good form.
“I see stuff that says it is my rookie season, I see stuff that says it isn’t, but at the end of the day it’s obviously my first full season and I think in general when Formula 1 is as close as it is right now, it’s just very very tough to get good performances out of a weekend,” Lawson admits.
“You have to do so many things right, and any sort of little mistake is very punishing, whether it’s within the team or within the drivers. It’s a competitive time right now that Formula 1 is in. I mean, it’s like half a tenth between everyone in Q1. To go to Spa and have a lap that’s nearly two minutes long and have P5 to P9 within one and a half tenths is insane.
“I’m excited to get into the second half. I think it’s just been a very tough first part of the year anyway, and things are in a good place at the moment. The car’s been very, very quick and going to a lot of places, not just that I’ve raced at but places I really enjoy – tracks that are exciting, places that are cool to go to, and I can hopefully keep the ball rolling. That’s obviously the target.”