Liam Lawson has named driver comfort in the car as the “most challenging” aspect of his surprise return to Red Bull.
Lawson was called up to race for the team in the Dutch Grand Prix after Isack Hadjar was ruled out due to a wrist injury, with the New Zealander returning to the team after being dropped following two races in 2025.
Lawson performed well at Zandvoort, finishing just 0.115s and one place behind regular driver Max Verstappen in qualifying, and then going onto finish in seventh in the grand prix – the best placed of the non-McLaren, Mercedes, or Ferrari drivers on a weekend Red Bull’s RB22 was firmly the fourth-fastest car.
Reflecting on his weekend, Lawson explained how, whilst the RB22 was “completely different aerodynamically” to his VCARB03 machine, the biggest “challenge” was getting used to the cockpit of his stand-in machine as opposed to his usual car.
“There are always things; I mean the car is completely different aerodynamically,” Lawson began to media, including RacingNews365.
“And there are always things, personally as drivers, we try and make our cars as comfortable for us, and there are some things that when you switch a car for a weekend, you just can’t automatically change those things.
“There is stuff in this car that isn’t the same as [the Racing Bulls] in terms of driver comfort that I’ve had to get my head around.
“Without being too specific, that’s the stuff that has probably been the most challenging.”