But that doesn’t stop with the teams competing in the top grid. It filters down through teams’ academy programmes too.
It’s a pressure Kiwi driver Liam Lawson knows all too well.
For the past five years, Lawson has been a part of the Red Bull junior programme, competing at different levels of the sport in his bid to one day get a fulltime role on the F1 grid.
Heading into the 2024 season, Lawson graduated from the academy; signing an extension to his F1 driver’s contract with Red Bull, which replaces his junior role with the team. The exact length of that extension could not be publicly disclosed, only that he has been signed as the official reserve driver for 2024.
In his new Red Bull TV mini-documentary Liam Lawson: In the Wings, Lawson shares a glimpse of the pressure he shoulders in each race as it follows his breakout 2023 campaign in F1 and Japanese Super Formula, noting the challenge of surviving the Red Bull academy programme.
Liam Lawson has spent the past five years in the Red Bull junior programme. Photo / Red Bull Content Pool
“It’s just the pressure that you’re put under from a young age,” Lawson told the Herald. “When you’re 16 years old and getting phone calls where you’re being told, basically, if you don’t perform in the next race you’re out of the programme, having that from a young age is obviously quite stressful.
“When I was that age, I remember it was really stressful. I always tried to show that it wasn’t, but I remember it was honestly pretty brutal sometimes. But I think if you deal with that every year, especially from that age, when you get to the age I am now, I’ve had that for five years.
“It definitely makes you stronger as a driver, especially trying to step into Formula 1. That comes with a massive amount of pressure. You have the whole world looking at you and I think without dealing with those high-pressure situations from a young age, I probably wouldn’t have been so ready for it.”
Lawson admitted he was on the receiving end of a few of those calls over the years, but he continued to show the team what he was capable of at every level they asked him to drive in.
“I think we all do and we all did,” Lawson said of getting those calls. “That’s definitely part of the part of the programme, let’s say.
“But it’s not that it was unfair as well, you know. Generally, there will be races where, if I make a mistake - because obviously we all do - then, you know, you expect one of those kinds of phone calls. There was always normally pretty good reason for it.”
Lawson’s readiness to take on the challenge of driving in an F1 Grand Prix came to the fore last year when he got to compete in his first race with about a day’s notice. When AlphaTauri (now Visa Cash App RB) driver Daniel Ricciardo broke his hand in a practice session ahead of the Dutch GP at Zandvoort in late August, Lawson was given the chance to drive.
As he recalls in the documentary, there wasn’t much of a discussion behind it. Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko asked if he was ready, Lawson said yes, and he went on to make an immediate impression in what turned out to be one of the trickiest races of the season.
He ended up deputising for Ricciardo in five Grand Prix, earning a ninth-placed finish in Singapore to secure his first points as an F1 driver and, at that point, the highest individual finish AlphaTauri had achieved all season. He also finished second in the Super Formula series, which was his main focus in 2023.
This year, Lawson’s only focus is his role as the Red Bull and Visa Cash App RB (VCARB) reserve driver. Marko has stated there will be a place for Lawson on the grid in 2025 and that he wants to see Lawson get more races in before that point, so there’s every chance the young Kiwi will be an F1 driver before the year ends – particularly with three of the four Red Bull and VCARB drivers on expiring contracts.
However, for Lawson, it’s all about controlling what he can and taking the rest as it comes his way.
“It’s always just moving forward, working on things and trying to make that happen as soon as possible.”
