After two years of waiting, and finally seizing his chance in 2024, Liam Lawson’s first full season in Formula One has been a rocky road.
Despite sealing his dream move to Red Bull, the Kiwi lasted just two races before losing his seat in a mid-season shake-up. But now back at Racing Bulls, Lawson is finding his feet in motorsport’s pinnacle.
Alex Powell breaks down exactly how the 2025 season has unfolded, so far.
Pre-season signs
Without question, 2024 couldn’t have ended any better for Lawson.
A six-race stint with Racing Bulls, the feeder team into Red Bull, and years worth of data as a test and reserve driver gave the team’s decisionmakers all the information they needed.
As Red Bull made the call to part ways with Sergio Perez, who’d been with the team for three constructors’ championships, Lawson was promoted after only 11 grands prix and found himself next to world champion Max Verstappen for 2025.
“I’m sure it’s going to be fine – I’ve seen Liam grow throughout the junior team and he fully deserves his shot with the team,” Verstappen said of Lawson at Formula One‘s official season launch.
“I’m excited to work together and have a great season again.”
After his promotion, Lawson said all the right things. His role at Red Bull wasn’t about beating Verstappen. It was about the two drivers working together to try to win back the constructors’ title that McLaren won in 2024.
On the surface, all was well.
However, behind the scenes, the perfect storm was brewing. Given Verstappen’s success since 2021 – four straight drivers’ championships – Red Bull saw no need to divert from their car design strategy. They backed Lawson to adapt, rather than fix issues that accounted for Perez, as well as Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly before him.
In short, Red Bull’s car is designed to favour Verstappen’s aggressive driving style. Its design puts emphasis on keeping speed in corners, which allows the driver to be quicker into the apex, before accelerating out for an advantage on the straight.
The flip side of that, though, is it gives a driver little margin for error. As a generational talent, Verstappen is good enough to handle it. However, finding a teammate on that level has been Red Bull’s issue since 2019.
As Formula One headed to Bahrain for pre-season testing, the 20 drivers had three days to get to grips with their cars, and were able to drive on track for the first time. After time spent behind the wheel of a simulator, this was it for Lawson.
Red Bull gave their recruit the first half of the opening day, and the entirety of day two of testing to experience what the RB21 was about. But while he logged 149 laps all up – more than 2.5 times the length of the Bahrain Grand Prix – there were issues.
A spin at turn three in the first session of day one showed that the RB21 was going to be much less forgiving than the VCARB01 Lawson had gotten to grips with the previous year.
And while Red Bull senior adviser Dr Helmut Marko had set Lawson the target of being within 0.3s of Verstappen over the course of the season, his best effort in pre-season was 0.886s slower than the world champion.
Still, titles aren’t won in pre-season. But as Formula One began in Melbourne, things were only getting started.
Off on the wrong foot
For the first time since 2019, the Australian Grand Prix kickstarted the season. For Kiwi motorsport fans, things couldn’t have been any better.
A New Zealand driver, in a top team, in a watchable time zone. For Lawson, the chance to begin in front of as many friends, family and compatriots as possible was a welcome one.
On track, though, things didn’t go as planned. Day one of the Grand Prix, Friday, resulted in Lawson logging 50 laps across two practice sessions.
The Albert Park street circuit was one he‘d never driven on before, meaning those sessions would be incredibly valuable once the lights went out on Sunday.
However, with the need for instant results, Lawson was more than 1.2s off the pace in both sessions, which were topped by Lando Norris (in McLaren) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) respectively.
With 2025 the first full season Red Bull went into without chief car designer Adrian Newey, who’d moved on to Aston Martin, the issues with the RB21 were clear, even if Lawson was still 0.759s and 0.577s back from Verstappen on day one.
“[I’m] comfortable, just too slow,” Lawson said after the first day.
Needing every available second possible in the car, day two – Saturday – couldn’t have been more difficult.
After two laps on track in the third and final practice, Lawson’s car gave out and the Kiwi was relegated to the garage with a pneumatic issue. Aside from being unable to log anything else in practice, it also left his mechanics racing against time to even get Red Bull’s No 30 car to the start line for qualifying, a few hours later.
To their credit, the mechanics showed the class of a world champion outfit and resolved any issues as qualifying began. But with that disadvantage, Lawson limped to 18th place, as his teammate qualified third – in equal machinery.
Potentially levelling the playing field, though, was heavy rain forecast for the Grand Prix. In Brazil last year, as rain fell over Interlagos, Lawson took his Racing Bulls and qualified fifth, before finishing ninth in the Grand Prix.
Like most Kiwis, Lawson is no stranger to driving in the wet. However, given the unfamiliarity with the track, and hostility of the RB21, Melbourne was no Brazil.
For starters, a change by Red Bull to his rear wing meant Lawson started from the pit lane.
And as rain continued to fall, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar wiped out on the formation lap, and Williams’ Carlos Sainz, who won the race in a Ferrari in 2024, didn’t make it to the end of lap one, along with Alpine‘s Jack Doohan.
As the track dried, and Lawson fitted a set of medium tyres, the Kiwi logged the second-fastest lap of the race, and effectively moved up to 13th place as Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin hit the wall.
But as rain returned, Red Bull’s preference for Verstappen told, as Lawson was left out for one lap too many on slick tyres and hit the wall with 10 laps to go. All up, six drivers failed to finish.
Not helping his cause, though, was Verstappen finishing second, showing what was possible for him in the RB21, and Norris showed the McLaren was the car to beat in 2025.
Struggles in Shanghai
It wasn’t about to get any easier. As was the case with Melbourne, Formula One‘s return to Shanghai meant Lawson was disadvantaged by the fact it was a circuit he‘d never raced on.
Furthermore, the Chinese Grand Prix – a week after Australia – was a sprint race weekend. While Lawson was hamstrung by losing one practice in Melbourne, he‘d lose two in China.
That, ultimately showed. With the 18th fastest time in the one practice session, Lawson was the slowest driver in sprint qualifying, and started at the back of the grid for the first time since his Formula One debut in 2023.
On that occasion, Lawson was able to move up for a credible 13th place at Zandvoort. And while Lawson was able to finish 14th, with no driver completing more overtakes during the 19-lap sprint, another difficult qualifying session meant starting 20th in the Grand Prix.
It was becoming all too clear for Red Bull. Lawson was running out of time to truly get comfortable in the RB21. For the second race running, Red Bull adjusted Lawson’s car after qualifying, which meant another start from the pit lane.
Despite Lawson showing in the sprint that he was able to make use of the hairpin at turn 14 to complete overtakes, braking late into the corner, the nature of the Shanghai circuit – with many twists and turns – did him no favours and he battled to feel comfortable enough to put his car on the limit.
The Grand Prix itself was as unremarkable as it could have been for Lawson.
Starting from the pits, Lawson’s superior car told over the course of 56 laps, as he finished ahead of both Sauber cars, Doohan’s Alpine, and former Racing Bulls teammate Yuki Tsunoda, while Alonso failed to finish again.
Once the two Ferraris and Gasly’s Alpine were disqualified, Lawson’s position was upgraded to 12th.
However, Oscar Piastri took his first win of the season as part of a McLaren one-two finish, while Verstappen missed the podium altogether by taking fourth.
Red Bull were now in danger of not only missing out on the constructors’ championship, but finishing outside the top three. It’s been well reported since he came into Red Bull that Verstappen’s contract has an out clause, which means he can leave the team if it finishes fourth or lower in the constructors’ championship.
On top of that, as seen last year when Red Bull dropped from first to third because of Perez’s struggles, there are serious financial consequences the lower a team finishes.
Lawson wasn’t just finishing outside the points, he wasn’t even challenging for them.
If Red Bull were going to have any hope of challenging McLaren, things couldn’t continue like this.
The switch
Where there‘s smoke, there‘s fire. Once the 10 Formula One teams returned to their respective bases after China, reports out of Holland began to circulate that Red Bull were going to make a change.
The Dutch media has in the past been a vehicle for Red Bull insiders to leak information before the team can make it public, and this time was no exception.
With a week off before the next race in Japan, Red Bull confirmed what had been widely reported. Even if there were signs Lawson was finding his feet behind the wheel of the RB21, time was the one thing team boss Christian Horner couldn’t spare.
Even by Red Bull’s standards, this was extreme. To lose patience with a driver midway through a season wasn’t new. Gasly lasted just 12 races before he made way for Albon in the 2019 summer break.
But to axe a driver two races into a campaign was brutal. Lawson would spend the rest of the season back at Racing Bulls. Tsunoda was charged with reigniting Red Bull’s constructors’ challenge.
On Red Bull’s end, the messaging was clear. Horner outlined that the team had a “duty of care to protect and develop” Lawson, which resulted in such a sudden change.
Whether you take Horner at his word or not, Red Bull’s actions were valid. Had Lawson stayed in the car through his struggles – in the same way Perez did – would he be too damaged to be of any value to Red Bull further down the track?
Verstappen made his feelings on the matter known; first by “liking” an Instagram post criticising Lawson’s treatment, and then doubling down on it when pressed by media.
Meanwhile, Red Bull’s engine supplier Honda, which was already understood to have put forward an eight-figure annual sum just to keep Tsunoda at Racing Bulls, reportedly added another US$10 million ($17m) to secure his promotion before the next race – its home Grand Prix.
Given Tsunoda’s links to Honda, it is widely postulated that the Japanese driver is merely a seat filler at Red Bull, considering his current contract expires at the same time the engine supplier leaves to join Aston Martin from 2026.
Sources close to Lawson told the Herald that while the Kiwi was naturally devastated to have been discarded so quickly, it didn’t stop him from getting up off the canvas.
A day later, Lawson travelled from his home in London to the Italian city of Faenza, where Racing Bulls are based.
There, he promptly got to work in adjusting to his switch, including getting a seat fitted and putting in the hours on a simulator to learn everything he could about Racing Bulls’ VCARB02.
Helping his cause was the fact that Lawson has raced at the Suzuka circuit more than any other track on the Formula One calendar.
In 2023, he raced there four times – once in Formula One as an injury replacement for Daniel Ricciardo, and three times during the Japanese Super Formula series, in which he finished second.
That experience was going to be needed, as Lawson set about rebuilding his career and Formula One hopes.
Bouncing back
There were some positive aspects to Lawson moving back to Racing Bulls.
The team went above and beyond to welcome the Kiwi back into their ranks at Suzuka.
“Everybody’s been very, very positive,” he said on arrival in Japan. “Even from last week, [team principal] Laurent [Mekies] was straight on the phone, and very, very positive, and saying all the things I needed to hear.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with this team, they’re a great bunch of people. It is nice to feel that welcome back again. Hopefully we can have some great races together.”
Most importantly, though, the car was much more forgiving than the RB21, as well as proving itself to be a solid midfield competitor by Tsunoda and rookie Isack Hadjar.
For the third Grand Prix running, though, Lawson was disadvantaged by a lack of time to prepare, with just a week of simulator work under his belt by the time he‘d arrived in Japan.
Day one, though, showed that there was still a capable driver there.
In a practice session disrupted by multiple red flags, courtesy of a patch of grass repeatedly catching fire at the exit of turn 11, Lawson was quicker than Verstappen and Tsunoda.
Admittedly it was only practice, but it was clear that the Racing Bulls car would be a better fit for Lawson, at a time when he needed confidence above all else.
Tsunoda on the other hand, in the same boat as Lawson in having no time on track in his new car, faltered first up.
For the first time in 2025, Lawson got out of the first session of qualifying and set the 14th fastest time. That was quickly overshadowed by Hadjar starting seventh, as Verstappen took pole.
Tsunoda, though, could only manage 15th, and would start behind the man whose job he just took when the lights went out for the Grand Prix, even as they were both upgraded one place through a penalty to Sainz.
As had happened in Melbourne, though, weather was to play a role.
From the moment the Japanese Grand Prix began, rain threatened but never arrived, forcing teams to keep one eye on the sky in order to quickly change their tyre strategy.
Even starting one place back, Tsunoda’s advantage in a quicker car told, and he got in front of Lawson before the end of the first lap.
Given Suzuka has a single DRS (drag reduction system) zone, overtaking was made difficult for every driver. Tsunoda was eventually named driver of the day for finishing 12th, just two positions higher than he started, the best for anyone on track.
Suzuka, with its high-speed corners, was the kind of track for which the RB21 – for all its faults – was designed.
That was seen through the McLaren garage, where team principal Andrea Stella was heard telling his drivers that the Red Bull’s sole advantage came through the hairpin at turn 11, where they were able to keep enough speed that allowed no chance to be overtaken.
Had Red Bull at the very least given Lawson another race to show his wares on a track he knows, in a car he was continuing to adapt to, things could have been much different.
Lawson, though, was left frustrated and finished 17th. Banking on rain or a safety car, the Racing Bulls’ pit strategy failed to materialise. After entering the pits when he was eighth on the grid, Lawson emerged in 16th, with little room to overtake.
Ultimately, after a battle that went on for close to 30 laps, Lawson was passed by Sainz, as part of a Grand Prix in which every driver finished.
Verstappen sublimely took the chequered flag, while Hadjar managed eighth. But with Norris second and Piastri third, McLaren took complete control of the constructors’ championship.
Hadjar, meanwhile, scored his first points in Formula One, as Lawson’s objective became about beating his teammate, rather than Tsunoda.
Elbows out
Like in Japan, Lawson headed to Bahrain, the next stop on the calendar, with experience on the circuit.
Aside from the pre-season testing, Lawson also had two wins and two more podium finishes at the Bahrain International Circuit in Formula Two.
Again, practice saw Lawson and Hadjar both better their Red Bull senior stablemates. Given the Middle Eastern heat, which led to the mercury touching 50C on the track during the first practice session, Bahrain was the first night race of the season and made tyre management all the more important.
But despite both Racing Bulls cars showing they had pace through the practice sessions, misfortune again effectively ruined Lawson’s race before it started.
A fault with his DRS in his final qualifying run caused Lawson’s rear wing to close prematurely and robbed him of vital milliseconds. A best qualifying mark of 1m 32.165s was enough for 17th place, however, the Kiwi was just 0.167s off advancing to the second stage of qualifying, caused by his DRS fault, as Hadjar qualified in 12th, nearly 1s in front of his teammate.
Unlike the tracks beforehand, though, Bahrain is notoriously favourable for racing, with three DRS zones allowing ample opportunity to overtake during the race.
But, as had been seen in Japan, Racing Bulls’ pit strategy again cost Lawson any chance of scoring points. Adopting a two-stop strategy, Lawson was asked to complete the last 25 of 57 laps on soft tyres, the fastest yet most transient compound.
As he left the pits for the final time, Lawson was 18th. That extra speed from the soft tyres saw him reel in Alsono and Hadjar before his race was ruined.
Not once, but twice, Lawson was penalised for colliding with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg. All up, 15s worth of time penalties meant Lawson had to settle for 16th, after crossing the line 13th.
Result aside, though, there was plenty for Lawson and Racing Bulls to quietly be happy with. On track, he bested Hadjar for the first time, even if that was wiped by the penalties.
Most significantly, despite being penalised for it, those penalties showed Lawson was still prepared to race.
On both occasions, he held his nerve into a corner, braked late, and then had the better on the exit. It was only the contact that stopped Lawson getting away cleanly.
“I wasn’t intentionally touching with others, but it is what it is,” he said post-race. “Obviously, it’s just a shame.
“We don’t have a result to show it, but the car was very fast in quali. The car was fast in the race.
“But there‘s only so much you can do from the back.”
Had there been any long-lasting effects from his Red Bull demotion, Lawson would have almost certainly not attempted those manoeuvres. A corner had clearly been turned.
Strong in Saudi
In the last of a triple-header, Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Corniche Circuit played host to the third race in as many weeks. And, to Kiwi delight, it was without question Lawson’s best of the season so far.
Again boasting a solid record in Saudi Arabia in Formula Two, Lawson could be confident about what he could achieve in Jeddah, as Racing Bulls’ midfield battle with the Williams and Alpine cars became clear.
A hiccup in practice aside, where Lawson was asked to front the stewards for failing to comply with the race director’s instructions, practice resulted in the Kiwi hovering from 11th to 14th across the three sessions.
Already on the up, qualifying then led to Lawson doing something he‘d only ever done once before as he outqualified his teammate.
By advancing past the first session for the second time in 2025, Lawson’s best lap of 1m 28.191s was 0.189s quicker than Hadjar as the pair started 12th and 14th respectively.
Given the stop-start nature of his Formula One career, Lawson hadn’t started ahead of a teammate since 2023, when he knocked Verstappen out of qualifying in Singapore – the only race Red Bull didn’t win that season.
Since its inception in 2021, every Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has featured a safety car. This year was no exception. As Tsunoda and Gasly collided on lap one, Lawson managed to survive the carnage but made up no places as he was overtaken by Hadjar amid the carnage.
But despite its fast nature, Jeddah is still a street circuit, where opportunities to overtake are few. Not helping the matter was Lawson being penalised for an overtake on Doohan – despite appearing to gain little to no advantage.
As Lawson swept around Doohan’s Alpine on the main straight, the Kiwi’s fresher tyres ultimately told and his Racing Bulls completed the overtake with little trouble.
And yet, as Lawson then went too deep at turn one immediately afterwards, the stewards ruled that he‘d gained an advantage and handed out a third penalty in two weeks to end any faint chance of scoring points.
That 10s penalty meant Lawson was relegated to 12th place after crossing the line 11th, and Hadjar nabbed the race‘s final point by taking 10th.
Regardless, the upward trajectory was now evident for Lawson. It’ll be when, not if, he starts scoring points.
Where to from here?
After another week off, Formula One returns this weekend with the Miami Grand Prix, the first of three American races on this year’s calendar.
Yes, this season has not returned the results Lawson or Red Bull would have demanded.
But most importantly, he‘s still there. Like no other sport, competitors in Formula One can fall victim to politics.
The 20 drivers on the grid are seldom the 20 best in the world. And yet, even with little to no commercial incentive to keep him there, Red Bull sees the value of having Lawson at Racing Bulls.
Whether or not that’s with a view to moving him back to Red Bull is still to be seen; neither Gasly nor Albon were able to break back into the senior side after their demotions in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
With McLaren and Piastri now seemingly the front-runners to win the constructors’ and drivers’ titles, Red Bull are in a spot of bother.
Tsunoda’s results, 12th, ninth and a “did not finish”, inspire little confidence of fighting for the constructors’ title, even if Verstappen is able to continue to take the fight to both McLarens.
However, neither Verstappen nor Tsunoda are guaranteed to stay beyond 2025. Speculation is increasing that Verstappen might walk away from the sport, while Tsunoda will all but certainly leave when Honda does.
That will leave Red Bull with one, possibly two seats to fill for 2026, as Formula One welcomes new regulations and a new team in Cadillac, while Sauber will be taken over by German giants Audi.
Those new regulations will, in theory, give Red Bull the ability to start from scratch in terms of their car design and come up with something that resets the predicament they’re currently in with the RB21.
With 19 races to go in 2025, Lawson has every opportunity to do what his predecessors couldn’t, and fight his way back into Red Bull’s plans.
If that’s not the case – as seen with Gasly and Albon – there would be no shame in looking elsewhere for an opportunity.
Williams’ team principal James Vowles approached Red Bull to take Lawson last year, only for Red Bull to say no.
Similarly, incoming Audi boss Jonathan Wheatley is also a known admirer of Lawson after his days as a sporting director at Red Bull.
And although there are still plenty of dominoes to fall in the race for a 2026 seat, with multiple teams having drivers out of contract over the coming months, there is a lot for Lawson to drive for.
This year might not have gone completely to plan. But Lawson’s future is, still, entirely in his hands.
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.
