Speaking to the F1 website at the halfway mark of the season<\/a>, Lawson argued that while he accepted his results were poor, he was never given a chance to prove his underperformance was down to insufficient preparation rather than skill.<\/p>\n\u201cI was well aware that those results weren\u2019t good enough, but I was just focused on improving, fixing and learning, basically,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in the same mindset as I have been since I came into F1.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752977588_817_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was the biggest thing going into a team like that, in a car like that it was going to take a bit of time to adjust [to] and learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith no proper testing, the issues in testing, the issues in Melbourne through practice, it wasn\u2019t smooth and clean.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed time, and I wasn\u2019t given it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tsunoda\u2019s struggles in his seat have cast Lawson\u2019s difficulties in a new light. While the Kiwi\u2019s results were considerably poorer, the well-regarded Japanese driver has yet to make a breakthrough with the difficult RB21.<\/p>\n
On average his results have been similar to those that had P\u00e9rez sent packing with two years to run on his contract at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
But the fact Tsunoda has been unable to perform \u2014 despite having been in sizzling form at Racing Bulls in 2024 and the first two rounds of 2025 \u2014 has finally forced the team to reckon with a more deeply seated problem than just its second driver.<\/p>\n
For years the design department has developed an increasingly niche car. Verstappen, his abilities preternatural, has been able to master it, but the mere mortal drivers partnered with him have endured greater and greater difficulties behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
This year even Verstappen has been unable to deliver consistent performances in the car, completing the team\u2019s rapid descent from dominant title winner in 2023 to also-ran just two years later.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda will be given at least until the end of the season, after which the prevalent assumption is he\u2019ll be moved on, though a fresh tack under new principal Laurent Mekies could yet change the game.<\/p>\n
The subsequent events reframed Lawson\u2019s struggles \u2014 and not just his; P\u00e9rez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly could all claim some credit back here \u2014 in less harsh terms.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s cold comfort for the Kiwi, however, whose career flipped from dazzlingly ascendant to alarmingly precarious less than a fortnight into the season.<\/p>\n
With Red Bull\u2019s next young gun, Arvid Lindblad, in line for promotion to Formula 1 next season, what should have been a dream season could yet turn into a nightmare.<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: What effect will Christian Horner\u2019s sacking have on the F1 silly season? Listen to Pit Talk below.<\/p>\n
NO LOSS OF CONFIDENCE<\/p>\n
Despite Christian Horner, the then Red Bull Racing principal, having claimed Lawson\u2019s demotion was and exercise in its \u201cduty of care to protect and develop Liam\u201d, his results remained stubbornly unimpressive upon his return to Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n
There are several elements that have gone into making him look more ordinary than expected.<\/p>\n
One is the acclimatisation process. Being thrown from one car to another in the middle of the season is always difficult, and after having struggled with an interrupted pre-season program at Red Bull Racing, having no pre-season at all with Racing Bulls made that challenge steeper.<\/p>\n
The other is that his teammate, Isack Hadjar, is arguably the standout rookie of the season. The Frenchman has been especially impressive in qualifying, and given the tightness of the midfield, that\u2019s made his Sunday results more impressive too.<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson\u2019s vital statistics, rounds 3 to 12<\/p>\n
Qualifying result: 13.7 average<\/p>\n
Qualifying head to head: Hadjar ahead 2-8<\/p>\n
Qualifying differential: Hadjar ahead 3.4 places<\/p>\n
Time differential: Hadjar ahead 0.279 seconds<\/p>\n
Race result: 12.0 average<\/p>\n
Race head to head: Hadjar ahead 1-7<\/p>\n
Race differential: Hadjar ahead 2.7 places<\/p>\n
Points: Hadjar ahead 12-21<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been easy to conclude a third reason \u2014 that Lawson, after being chewed up and spat out by one of F1\u2019s grandees in just two grands prix, has had his confidence shattered.<\/p>\n
P\u00e9rez, after all, looked like a broken man in his final months at Red Bull Racing.<\/p>\n
Lawson, however, denies that psychology has played a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really talked much about it because I think for a big part of this year I\u2019ve just ignored everything that happened and I\u2019ve just focused on trying to drive the car, but I know there was a lot of stuff that went out that was speculation about how I was feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy confidence hasn\u2019t changed since the start of the year to now.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing to be clear about is that between the first couple of races, to the team switch, then going to Japan, mentally for me nothing changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been very heavily speculated that my confidence took a hit and stuff like this, which is completely false. From the start of the year I felt the same as I always have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in two races, on tracks I\u2019d never been to, it\u2019s not really enough for my confidence [to suffer].<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe six months into a season if I\u2019m still at that level, if the results are still like that, then I\u2019d be feeling something, maybe my confidence would be taking a hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there are green shoots finally emerging in Lawson\u2019s season to prove it.<\/p>\n
Marquez makes it five wins on the bounce | 00:55<\/p>\n
\u2018NO BREAKTHROUGHS, JUST GRADUAL BUILD-UP\u2019<\/p>\n
Hidden in the one-sided statistics relative to Hadjar are signs of real progress.<\/p>\n
The qualifying margin between them is narrowing. Drawing a line of best fit through the gap demonstrates a 0.071-second trajectory of improvement for Lawson, and if you include only the European leg of the season \u2014 Imola onwards, including Canada \u2014 the trend is even steeper.<\/p>\n
Lawson has also scored all 12 of his points during the European campaign, starting with four points for eighth in Monaco and then collecting eight points in a standout run to sixth in Austria, the round before last. <\/p>\n
While he\u2019s down 12-21 relative to Hadjar for the season, that difference drops to a more respectable 12-16 since the first race in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think recently, performance-wise, it\u2019s been our strongest [phase],\u201d he said. \u201cThe car\u2019s been fast, and I\u2019ve also been probably at a level that I wasn\u2019t quite at before that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say there hasn\u2019t been enough points scored, for sure. Austria was great, but it\u2019s not enough. We need to be doing stuff like that as much as we can. I think the consistency is what\u2019s been tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the start of the year, the big shake-up with the team switch and then not really having the time to get to grips with things, racing every weekend, and trying to be at the level that I need to be at \u2014 it\u2019s been a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austria was a particularly impressive weekend.<\/p>\n
It was just the second round at which Lawson outqualified Hadjar, beating him by 0.022 seconds on his way to his second Q3 appearance of the season, where he qualified a career-best sixth.<\/p>\n
He held onto that position at the head of the midfield to the flag, beating Fernando Alonso to the place.<\/p>\n
While it stands alone as a strong result, the races on either side of Austria were compromised \u2014 Canada by a cooling problem and Great Britain by a faultless first-lap crash.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why Lawson didn\u2019t describe his Red Bull Ring result as singularly significant but rather a reward for his incremental improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo breakthroughs, just gradual build-up,\u201d he said. \u201cEven from the first triple-header [Imola-Monaco-Spain] the speed was good. It wasn\u2019t great, but it was quite good there. Since then it\u2019s been in a pretty good place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone to a lot of tracks \u2014 Monaco we were very strong in practice, Barcelona strong in practice, Canada strong in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you go to qualifying and little things make a difference. It\u2019s not good enough, because the results haven\u2019t been coming consistently enough, but the speed itself has been quite good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy Austria was a great weekend was obviously just to have that breakthrough of points and I guess probably show a little bit of what\u2019s been building for a while but also what needs to be coming more frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Feeney storms to tenth win of the season | 01:30<\/p>\n
RACING BULLS SEASON<\/p>\n
While his margin to Hadjar will be crucial to any decision-making at the end of the season, Lawson\u2019s ability to rack up Austria-like big results will be dictated by the quality of the machinery at his disposal.<\/p>\n
Racing Bulls started the season as the fastest team in the six-car midfield including Williams, Aston Martin, Sauber, Haas and Alpine.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s been second-best for much of the year since, first to Williams and more recently to Aston Martin.<\/p>\n
Average gap to fastest midfield car, last five rounds<\/p>\n
1. Aston Martin: 0.136<\/p>\n
2. Racing Bulls: 0.200<\/p>\n
3. Williams: 0.264<\/p>\n
4. Alpine: 0.412<\/p>\n
5. Haas: 0.435<\/p>\n
6. Sauber: 0.599<\/p>\n
But the scrap is close, and with theoretically only two points-paying places available for the midfielders on any given weekend \u2014 assuming all eight frontrunning drivers perform well \u2014 tiny differences can add up to significant scores over a season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [the goal] for us it\u2019s just having more frequent, good races, not one-off races,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very hard, especially in the midfield, where you\u2019re trying to have that edge over everybody else around you.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re quite often fighting for [a few] points at the back end of the top 10, and occasionally when things are really good you get an Austria weekend, but it\u2019s very hard to achieve that all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say a consistent run of points is what we\u2019re looking for, to have [fewer] of these weekends where it\u2019s little issues, being knocked out in Q1 and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Lawson can find the consistency for regular Q3 appearances alongside Hadjar, and if he can regularly snipe for points, he might give Red Bull management something to think about, especially while Lindblad searches for his own run of form in Formula 2.<\/p>\n
That\u2019ll be particularly important not just for him but for the team. Racing Bulls is currently seventh in the standings and tied on points with Aston Martin in eighth.<\/p>\n
The rapidly improving Sauber is one place and seven points ahead, but more intriguing is Williams, which is 23 points up the road in fifth.<\/p>\n
Racing Bulls has never finished higher than sixth in any guise, and with Williams having put its cue in the rack for development of this year\u2019s car to benefit next year\u2019s all-new design, it could be vulnerable in the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tall ask, but with half the season still to run, everything is on the table.<\/p>\n
That applies to Lawson too. <\/p>\n
He may not have got the time he deserved at Red Bull Racing to make an impression, but he has 12 more grands prix to state his case in a car capable of occasional big results.<\/p>\n
The pressure\u2019s on, but it\u2019s up to him to prove he\u2019s equal to the challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson says he wasn\u2019t given time to prove himself at Red Bull Racing before his brutal sacking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[14214,14203,2095,14212,1724,64,63,689,3159,2065,14225,14205,1199,14216,14215,14223,14210,9239,14199,1208,2057,817,14206,845,813,816,14213,14211,941,4280,647,14200,927,14227,2099,1736,2041,2067,3583,677,14220,14208,2119,14224,14204,14217,14218,14226,14201,14202,2078,2072,2109,2113,85,14209,14198,14207,14221,13773,14229,14219,660,14228,14222,2062],"class_list":["post-12468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-acclimatisation-process","tag-alex-albon","tag-america","tag-arvid-lindblad","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-austria","tag-canada","tag-challenge-steeper","tag-chinese-grands-prix","tag-christian-horner","tag-design-department","tag-dominant-title-winner","tag-dream-season","tag-driver-market","tag-eastern-asia","tag-emergency-change","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-faultless-first-lap-crash","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-gradual-build-up","tag-grands-prix","tag-japan","tag-marc-marquez","tag-melbourne","tag-midfield-car","tag-monaco","tag-mortal-drivers","tag-nears-crunch-point","tag-new-zealand","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-one-off-races","tag-one-sided-statistics-relative","tag-pit-talk","tag-points-scored","tag-prevalent-assumption","tag-race-differential","tag-race-result","tag-racing-bulls-season","tag-rapid-descent","tag-real-progress","tag-season-nears-crunch","tag-sergio-perez","tag-silly-season","tag-silly-season-nears","tag-sports","tag-standout-rookie","tag-standout-rookie-season","tag-standout-run","tag-team-pricipalformula","tag-team-principal","tag-team-switch","tag-time-differential","tag-victoria","tag-vital-statistics","tag-well-regarded-japanese-driver","tag-western-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}