Liam Lawson has explained that a natural long-held dream of being an F1 champion is no longer as clear as he thought it would be after being axed by Red Bull earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Lawson was handed an astonishing promotion at the end of last year, replacing Sergio Perez at Red Bull after just 12 grands prix – six in each of 2023 and 2024 with the sister team – as Max Verstappen’s team-mate.<\/p>\n
It was the realisation of everything Lawson had worked towards throughout his junior career, and especially after being taken on as a Red Bull junior in early 2019.<\/p>\n
But it was a dream that rapidly disintegrated into a nightmare. After just two races, in Australia and China, where Lawson had never turned a wheel in the past, it was decided he would return to Racing Bulls, trading places with Yuki Tsunoda.<\/p>\n
It has taken a while for Lawson to again find his feet, and he has found himself up against a team-mate in rookie Isack Hadjar, who is fast earning himself the tag of the next driver on the conveyor belt to be handed the task of working alongside Verstappen.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, and asked whether it was still his dream to return to Red Bull, the New Zealander provided a surprising answer.<\/p>\n
“It’s tough,” said Lawson initially.<\/p>\n
“As much as I wanted to be a Red Bull Racing driver, and that’s what I worked towards, from becoming a Red Bull junior, the dream I’ve had since I was five years old, has been [to be a] world champion, winning in Formula 1 and reaching the top of the sport.<\/p>\n
“That’s more or less where my dream sits, where my goal is, trying to become the best. That’s what we’re all working towards.<\/p>\n
“Where I do that is not so clear as much as I thought it was.”<\/p>\n
Lawson’s short spell with Red Bull, the shortest of any driver in the team’s history, he will forever be remembered for.<\/p>\n
On reflection, as to whether he could have done anything differently, his response was more circumspect, offering little detail.<\/p>\n
“Doing it over again, there are probably things that, yes, maybe, you can do differently,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You always learn things afterwards. You always look back in hindsight. There are always things you can do better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson has explained that a natural long-held dream of being an F1 champion is no longer as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,827,817,830,828,831,829,826,813,816,823,825,824,822,85],"class_list":["post-146086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146086","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=146086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}