Liam Lawson has described the F1 2025 season as an “emotional rollercoaster” following a campaign that had both highs and lows.
From the intense pressure to deliver to the lack of time available to process the sport mentally, Lawson admitted he’s a different person now than he was a year ago.
In the days that followed the F1 2024 season, Liam Lawson was announced as Max Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull.
His had been a merteoric if unconventional path, from contemplating the potential end of his F1 dreams, to a sudden call-up at the 2023 Dutch GP, to being drafted in full-time in the latter stages of 2024, replacing an eight-time race winner.
With less than a dozen races to his name, he was pitched against the benchmark driver of the era, a task regarded as the most difficult in Formula 1.
Back then, the world was at his feet. Red Bull was capable of race wins, and Lawson has shown strong potential.
But just two weekends into the 2025 season, the carpet was whipped from under him. Tough events in Australia and China left him on the backfoot, his confidence plummeting. Perhaps the harshest decision of his career was made, and the New Zealander was bumped back to Racing Bulls.
In retrospect, it was the right call. Too much had been asked of Lawson too soon, and allowed to carry on as it was threatened not only Red Bull’s fortunes, but Lawson’s career.
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Harsh as it was, arguably moving back to Racing Bulls was a saving grace. And, in time, his form recovered.
He was strong in Monaco, a weekend when a discovery would lead to improved results further down the line as things began to click, and the confidence began to return.
“There’s highs and lows you go through,” Lawson told PlanetF1.com in an exclusive interview.
“They’re inevitable in the sport. Eventually you’re gonna have a bad weekend.
“I probably feel like we’ve had more of them than we than we should have, or more of them than I would have wanted.
“Obviously I’m I take things from those weekends to learn from.”
It’s often said that there is more to learn in defeat that victory, but having the time to process and absorb those lessons in Formula 1 is difficult.
With a packed 24-race calendar in which drivers are jetting from one country to the next, with sponsorship commitments and simulator sessions shoehorned in between, there is little time for introspection.
For Lawson, that created a further hurdle. Processing the events of any given weekend, understanding and dealing with whatever emotions, it was difficult just to find the time.
“Trying to stay on top of, just mentally, the highs, the lows, the fact that you have, sometimes three days or not even that, to move past them,” he trailed off.
“Trying to take the most important things from a weekend and apply them, whether they’re it’s a good weekend or a bad weekend, you really don’t have time to dwell on things.
“That sort of emotional roller coaster that you go through is something that is quite intense, and something I’ve experienced more this year than any other year.”
Lawson is no stranger to doing things the hard way.
Growing up, his family couldn’t afford his racing programme, forcing him to work hard to secure the funding himself.
That landed him on Red Bull’s radar, as part of its notoriously brutal driver development programme. Even then, there were no guarantees.
In 2023, Lawson and I spoke over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend. He was competing in Super Formula at the time, something he spoke of enthusiastically, but he longed for an F1 opportunity that he felt was slipping away.
Soon after his call-up in place of Daniel Ricciardo a few races later, we spoke again. While a weight had been lifted, he quietly confessed that he thought his F1 chance had slipped him by.
Lawson is well accustomed to doing things the hard way. But, when given the opportunity, he’s typically grasped it with both hands.
“It’s a massively mental sport,” he said, back in the here and now.
“Even when you’re when you’re on track, and you’re in a session, and you’re going out for a qualifying lap; there’s so many variables, you have so many things that that need to go together and and a lot of them are in your control.
“Even that in itself is something that is in the back of your mind sometimes.
“Trying to deliver, and under that sort of intensity, is something that’s very tough.
“In Formula 1, especially in your early years when you haven’t cemented yourself as an F1 driver, you’re still being examined.
“That’s something that that we probably have to deal with quite a lot.”
Nothing can prepare a driver for the step into Formula 1.
A reserve driver role is all well and good, as is progressing up the established ladder via Formula 3 and Formula 2, but there is nothing quite like being a fully fledged F1 driver – for good and bad.
Expectations increase, visibility increases, the pressure increases, and every moment is scrutinised now more than it ever has been by a media room that itself is under the pump in the quest for a headline.
If it bleeds, it leads, goes the old adage. Negativity sells, which prompts difficult and often confronting questions, forcing a driver, Lawson, to dwell on moment he’d rather forget.
Dealing with those pressures, and learning to shut out the noise is critical for a driver. It’s a skill, some are naturally better than others, some like or need to talk it through.
Lawson, who has demonstrated throughout his career that he’s an especially tough nut to crack, has Enzo Mucci – a performance coach with a passion for the mental side of motorsport.
“Enzo’s somebody that’s been right there through through all of it,” Lawson said.
“Especially at the very start of the year with the first couple of races, he was somebody I spoke to a lot.
“He’s somebody that I’m very fortunate to have, and have had for quite a long time, to have the relationship with him from when I was very young.
“To basically still have him to lean on now, he’s some somebody that I’m very grateful for.”
By the end of F1 2025, Lawson had refound his mojo.
Impressive in Azerbaijan, he proved a match for Isack Hadjar from the mid-point of the season – once he’d steadied the ship following a tumultuous start to the year.
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And it’s changed him. Still only 23, the experience has added another layer of resilience and served only to reinforce his fortitude and determination.
“Everybody’s changing and evolving,” he conceded.
“I’ve learned a lot in this year.
“The goal of Liam Lawson 12 months ago hasn’t changed, and what I’ve been working towards since I was a kid, and what I’ve what I’m trying to achieve, has never changed.
“But what I’ve learned this year, and after doing a season in this sport, is you’re constantly changing or learning.”
Through the lessons, the personal growth – the rollercoaster – Lawson remains recognisable from the Kiwi lad who first caught the eye of Helmut Marko.
He’s relaxed, easy going, funny, even somewhat mischievous – the sort that would sit in the back row of the class room and throw paper planes when the teacher wasn’t looking.
In Abu Dhabi, as I sat in conversation in the Yas Marina paddock, it began to rain. Not water, but small balls of paper. Above us, just out of sight, Liam Lawson was lobbing bits of paper at us, his ruse uncovered when he poked his head out the window to take in his handiwork, and laughed. He’d survived one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
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