Liam Lawson has effectively confirmed what plenty suspected all along: his brutal two-race exile from Red Bull last year had far less to do with him and far more to do with a car that was, by his own admission, sitting on a knife edge nobody could ride.
Called up again at Zandvoort after Isack Hadjar’s wrist injury forced Red Bull’s hand, Lawson didn’t just survive his cameo, he thrived. He ran close to Max Verstappen’s pace and brought the car home in seventh for points. Compare that to the start of 2025, when two rounds were enough to see him unceremoniously shipped back to Racing Bulls, and the contrast is glaring.
A Car Built to Punish Hesitation
Lawson isn’t dressing this up as some personal redemption arc, and credit to him for that. Speaking to media including RacingNews365, he laid out exactly why last year’s version of him and this year’s version of him look like different drivers entirely.
“The main thing last year was there were two tracks I’d never been to. So on top of that, trying to learn a car that was already very hard to drive.” – Liam Lawson
That’s a polite way of saying he was thrown into a pressure cooker with zero preparation. New venues, an unfamiliar seat, and a car that apparently offered no forgiveness whatsoever if you weren’t already extracting the last tenth from it.
“Last year the car was on such a knife edge, at least at the start, that if you weren’t on that limit, then it was a huge lap time killer.” – Liam Lawson
That single line probably explains half of Red Bull’s driver merry-go-round from last season. A car that only rewards perfection and punishes anything less isn’t a car, it’s a trap. Lawson fell into it. So, at various points, did others who sat in that second seat.
No Time to Adjust, No Room to Learn
What’s striking is how basic the problems actually were. This wasn’t some abstract complaint about aerodynamic balance or tyre degradation windows. It was pedals. Steering. The physical furniture of the cockpit.
“I went into last year, thought I was going to have more time in the car, so I was more or less just adapting to everything that Max had in the car. And there’s a lot of stuff, just like pedals, steering, everything like that, that was different for me. I didn’t have time to get used to it.” – Liam Lawson
Imagine turning up to a new job and discovering the desk, chair and keyboard are all set up for someone else, and you’ve got no time to adjust any of it before you’re expected to perform at the highest level in the building. That’s roughly what Lawson was dealing with, except the stakes were a factory seat at a top team and his own career trajectory.
This time round, at Zandvoort, he made sure history didn’t repeat itself.
“[At Zandvoort], I said let’s make it as close to my car as possible.” – Liam Lawson
Simple, sensible, and apparently enough to make a genuine difference. Funny how much smoother things go when a driver isn’t fighting the seating position on top of everything else.
A Genuinely Different Machine
It’s not just about settings, though. Lawson is adamant the car itself is a different animal under the new regulations, one that doesn’t demand absolute perfection just to be vaguely competitive.
“This car potentially is not so difficult to drive, or difficult to be on the limit. So it’s more putting everything else together, tyre prep, just getting the balance right in the car and getting used to how it actually drives, versus a car last year that was just very tough to put on the limit.” – Liam Lawson
That tracks with what we already knew about Red Bull’s old car being a nightmare for anyone not named Verstappen, and it should sting a little for the team given how many careers got dented trying to tame it. Yuki Tsunoda, Lawson’s replacement at the time, found the same beast just as unmanageable, and sits winless and pointless in the standings this season having since moved on.
Lawson also pointed to the value of continuity within this regulation cycle, and of sticking with the same power unit, as factors quietly working in his favour now that didn’t exist last year.
“Having more time in this car and this regulation period, as much as the car is very, very different, there are a lot of things that factor into putting a lap together with these power units. Having the same power unit helps as well.” – Liam Lawson
What It Means Going Forward
None of this rewrites Lawson’s difficult start with Red Bull, and it shouldn’t be read as some quiet campaign for a permanent recall. He sits ninth in the drivers’ championship on 49 points, comfortably behind teammate Isack Hadjar, and his current reality is a supporting role rather than a starring one. But his Zandvoort outing does raise an uncomfortable question for Red Bull’s decision makers: how many of last year’s driver headaches were actually driver problems at all, rather than a car problem dressed up as one?
It’s a question that arrives with awkward timing too, given Red Bull heads into this week’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza still managing Hadjar’s recovery. If Lawson is needed again and delivers another performance like Zandvoort, the team may find it increasingly hard to argue that last year’s exile was ever really about him.
