The latest season of Netflix’s hit series Drive To Survive spells out a warning to the budding Kiwi motorsport superstar as Formula One testing gets under way; Is Red Bull’s scheming boss really in Liam Lawson’s corner?; And the Warriors’ rivals’ bad behaviour creates the wrong headlines for the NRL
Liam Lawson’s trial by fire revs up with a warning – Sports Insider
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Michaela Brake, Gordon Ramsay, Liam Lawson and Christian Horner. Photos / Photosport, Red Bull Content Pool
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Lawson is launching himself into a real-life soap opera that comes with the global travelling carnival of horsepower and egos that create an industry worth US$24 billion ($42b).
It will take instincts even sharper than his obvious on-track talents for him to survive.
And “survive” is the operative word here.
A few days before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16, Netflix will drop its latest season of its F1-based series Drive To Survive.
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It will be a reminder of what lies ahead for Lawson.
No matter what unfolds, Lawson’s ascent to the elite F1 driver ranks is the biggest story in New Zealand sport in 2025 by the proverbial mile – which is about the distance by which the Red Bull team used to dominate its grand prix rivals not so many seasons ago.
But he’s also a global story in a way that no other New Zealand sports star has ever been in such an early stage of their career.
The Netflix crews will be all over Lawson this week, and for the rest of the year. Every significant decision he makes will be filmed live, scrutinised by legions of fans (and social-media haters) and replayed unfiltered to a massive audience.
Sports Insider can’t think of any other New Zealand sports star who has faced such an intimidating challenge.
After winning seven out of the first 10 races to start the 2024 season, Red Bull didn’t score a single victory in the following 10.
Max Verstappen practically fell over the line to secure his fourth successive world championship while underperforming Mexican teammate Sergio Perez faded so badly that Red Bull fell behind both McLaren and Ferrari in the constructors’ championship.
The failure to secure the prized constructors’ title it won in 2022 and 2023 hurt Red Bull the most last year.
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Enter Lawson as the solution.
Perez is gone and it is now all on the young Kiwi to deliver the points – including podium finishes – that Red Bull’s formidable boss Christian Horner will demand in support of Verstappen and the quest for to regain the constructors title.
If Lawson needs any more indication of what he’s in for, he can take a hint from the promotional poster for the latest season of Drive To Survive which, among several storylines, covers Red Bull’s travails of the 2024 championship campaign.
The just-released season seven poster features Verstappen looking in his rear-view mirror as the McLaren of Oscar Piastri and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz battle in the background.
With a tag-line of “Watch Your Back”, it’s a safe bet Red Bull’s troubles feature strongly.
Lawson’s bid to become the teammate Verstappen needs – under the Machiavellian tutelage of Horner – is lip-smacking content for the Netflix crew already on its way to Melbourne to start filming season eight.
The microscope will be as relentless and gruelling as any championship grand prix he faces this year.
Even outside of Netflix’s ubiquitous cameras and microphones, the media circus that surrounds F1 will scrutinise Lawson’s private life and probe for perceived tension in his friendship with Verstappen, while picky critics dissect every on-track decision.
It all means that while Lawson will be a bit player at best in season seven of Drive to Survive, probably mentioned in the coverage of the pressure Perez has been under, he will almost certainly be a leading character in the next series.
No pressure, Liam.
Will Horner saga feature in latest DTS?
The buzz around season seven of Drive To Survive is the likely storylines of the falls of Perez and long-time fan favourite Daniel Ricciardo, the jousting between McLaren teammates Piastri and Lando Norris, and Sir Lewis Hamilton’s defection to Ferrari.
But one big question is being whispered aloud by ardent followers of the series.
Beyond the ructions in the Red Bull garage and a car that lost its performance edge mid-season, will the series feature any coverage from the early season controversy involving accusations of Christian Horner’s inappropriate behaviour towards a member of staff?
Horner survived two investigations but reports of a rift between key figures at the team, and superstar car designer Adrian Newey subsequently announcing he was leaving, tore at the heart of Red Bull.
Regardless of whether Drive to Survive exposes or dissects that tension or not, it is a salacious sub-plot to the soap opera Lawson is also about to become a real-life character in.
How Horner holds himself together and conducts himself over the next 12 months as his mantle of F1 team emperor comes under threat will likely impact Lawson’s future as much as his results.
Married to former Spice Girl Gerri Halliwell, Horner’s first public appearance of 2025 at this week’s season launch was met with booing from the assembled crowd. There seems to be little love for him.
Some F1 insiders say Horner is still to be convinced of Lawson’s ability. Indeed, Red Bull’s key advisor Helmut Marko has been the loudest endorser of our Kiwi hope, albeit also setting a high bar.
Ironically, if he performs, Lawson will probably save Horner’s bacon.
The dynamic between the pair will be fascinating to watch over the year.
For what it’s worth, Lawson has shown remarkable maturity, given the pressure-cooker scenario he has been thrown into.
He will need all that and more in a make-or-break year. There won’t be a single Kiwi who doesn’t wish him well.
FFS!! Swear jar now a F1 feature!
Lawson and his F1 colleagues have a new challenge this season – keeping their mouths shut in the heat of battle.
In January, F1’s overlords announced that drivers could be banned from races if they use inappropriate language.
Unsurprisingly, the issue has been in the spotlight since Verstappen was ordered to complete community service for swearing at a press conference following a race in Singapore last year.
Verstappen clearly regards the “no-swearing” edict as nonsense.
“I prefer not to speak about that,” the Dutch driver told reporters at this week’s 2025 season launch. “Otherwise I’ll get in trouble.
“I think we shouldn’t take it so seriously. I’m also not going to tell you how you should behave in life.”
Verstappen found unlikely support at the launch in UK celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who is known for his colourful language on television.
“These athletes push themselves to the extreme,” Ramsay said at the event. “So sometimes if it comes out, let them be real ... they are live every time.
“They’re travelling over 200 miles an hour. So if the shit ... ” Ramsay said before his microphone was cut off by the hyper-sensitive event promoters before he could perhaps say “hits the fan”.
All eyes on Verstappen and Mercedes driver George Russell then.
The pair clashed at the end of last season when Russell called the Red Bull driver a “bully” who thinks he is “above the law”. He also alleged that Verstappen threatened to put his ‘f***ing head in the wall’.
Verstappen later responded, describing Russell as “two-faced” and saying he had “lost all respect” for the Brit.
What happens in Vegas
By the admittingly low bar Australia’s NRL competition sets for player behaviour, the Warriors have done a good job in keeping their noses clean publicly in recent years.
But if the players need a reminder that what happens in Las Vegas certainly doesn’t stay in Vegas, they just need to look at Saturday’s rivals in the Sin City season-opener, the Canberra Raiders.
A night out on the drink ended badly for Raiders players Hudson Young and Morgan Smithies when the pair ended up exchanging blows inside the elevator of the team hotel.
The subsequent headlines in Australian and American media will not have endeared them to NRL officials who are reportedly spending A$1.2 million ($1.3m) on this weekend’s four-team showdown at the magnificent Allegiant Stadium (Penrith play Cronulla in the other match).
The stoush apparently happened when Young and Smithies started fighting over access to a hotel room. Smithies didn’t have a room due to a hotel system malfunction and wanted to spend the night sharing a bed with his teammate and best friend.
Young apparently didn’t like that idea and the Sydney Morning Herald described an incident that “began as a wrestle for the room turning into a brawl with punches being thrown”.
While thumping each other, the pair accidently bumped the lift’s emergency button, alerting security who initially mistook an inflatable baseball bat, bought on Las Vegas Boulevard hours earlier as a memento, as a weapon.
The SMH reported they were evicted from the hotel before eventually returning. Hotel staff then escorted one of the players to his new room. However, it was already being used by an unidentified Penrith Panthers player.
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
All that hot air in Sin City, nobody to blow the horn
If you are a follower of omens, you might want to put your money on the Warriors to roll Canberra in Vegas.
It hasn’t been a good week for the Raiders, given the previous incident.
Now they can’t find any celebrity of note to sound the Viking horn ahead of the Canberra team running out against James Fisher-Harris and Mitch Barnett and their men.
First, they mused over enticing NFL superstar Tom Brady to do the deed, but couldn’t get it done. Then they pivoted to Vegas resident and UFC founder Dana White.
The NRL had planned to give White the red-carpet treatment, hoping his presence would increase the chances of his great friend Donald Trump also turning up.
But White will be out of town and Trump is too busy creating world mayhem, sending the Raiders back to the drawing board.
Canberra are still hopeful of securing a high-profile figure to do the honours after commissioning a new American-made horn that cost more than $10,000 to make.
Team of the Week
Michaela Brake (née Blyde) The newly-married Black Ferns Sevens star has a slightly tweaked surname now but is still leaving tacklers in her spectacular wake, helping her team secure a three-peat at the Vancouver event. She has now scored a record 264 tries in the sevens series. Next stop: the Warriors.
Ma’a Nonu The Keith Richards of rugby (in terms of how long he has been around) saddles up at 42 years old for a third stint with French Top 14 giants Toulon. The evergreen midfielder debuted for the Hurricanes in 2003, meaning he was playing before many current Super Rugby players were born!
Nick Voke Wins a big Australian PGA event in Sydney to raise hopes that a Kiwi can win the New Zealand Golf Open this week in Queenstown for the first time since Michael Hendry in 2017.
