Lawson has been drafted in to replace the injured Isack Hadjar<\/a>, who was ruled out of the weekend after sustaining a wrist injury during Formula 1\u2019s summer shutdown, with the call-up forcing a sudden change to his Dutch GP preparations.<\/p>\n\u201cI literally landed, I hadn\u2019t even got off the plane,\u201d Lawson said when asked when he found out about the call-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had come from basically being on break and landed in the UK for what I thought was going to be obviously VCARB prep.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlan [Permane] called me and basically he told me what was going on. So then my week changed pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
His unexpected recall was confirmed on Wednesday, with Lawson moving across to partner Max Verstappen and Red Bull reserve Yuki Tsunoda taking his place alongside Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls.<\/p>\n
The move gives the 24-year-old another opportunity with Red Bull after his previous spell with the team lasted just two rounds at the beginning of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Lawson has since rebuilt his F1 career with Racing Bulls and enters Zandvoort sitting ninth in the drivers\u2019 championship, but his attention has quickly shifted towards adapting to a substantially different car.<\/p>\n
With the Dutch Grand Prix also a sprint weekend, Lawson will have just one practice session before competitive action begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s really different, to be honest. For me, I\u2019m coming in for this weekend and in a unique situation to try and maximise one weekend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very different to being in your own car, being in your own team. At the same time, I\u2019ve had a lot of races since then, F1 as well. So, learned a huge amount.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to try and take as much of that into this weekend as I can, but it\u2019s for sure going to be interesting. It\u2019s a tough track, weather is going to be very interesting as well. So, yeah, let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson said he completed a Red Bull simulator session on Wednesday as part of his limited preparation and believed familiarity with the team\u2019s power unit should at least remove one unknown.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least the power unit is the same, so that\u2019s one thing that should hopefully help things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in terms of the car itself, they\u2019re completely different. That\u2019s going to be for sure a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the nature of a sprint weekend having one practice session, I\u2019m pretty aware that it\u2019s going to be a lot to build up to.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo start, it\u2019s probably going to feel very foreign. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be quite tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson said he expected the early stages of Friday practice to be largely about understanding the RB22 before attempting to build towards qualifying later in the weekend.<\/p>\n
He added that he would also have Verstappen\u2019s data available as another reference to accelerate that process.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I\u2019ve spoken to Max [Verstappen],\u201d Lawson said. \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to him plenty of times as well in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure I will be looking at a lot of what he\u2019s doing tomorrow. I have his simulator stuff as well as a reference to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the circumstances surrounding his last Red Bull stint, Lawson played down suggestions that stepping back into the senior team presented a significant risk to the progress he had made this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of it maybe being a risk, I don\u2019t know\u2026 it\u2019s a unique situation to be in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great year so far in my car, but at the same time, I\u2019m excited for the opportunity this weekend to drive something different, to be back with this team, even if it\u2019s for just a weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson similarly dismissed the idea that being recalled represented any form of vindication after losing his Red Bull seat to Tsunoda early last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it feels like a long time ago and it\u2019s such a different circumstance now as well, obviously now being one week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t really looked at it like that. For me we\u2019ve had a really good year so far, and obviously I\u2019m grateful to have been chosen for something like this.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m really focused on trying to get something out of the weekend. It would be great to do that and have a good weekend, but I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson is no stranger to unexpected driver changes at Zandvoort, having made his F1 debut at the circuit in 2023 after Daniel Ricciardo broke his hand during practice.<\/p>\n
He said that experience left him confident he had already faced an even more difficult introduction at the Dutch venue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had some pretty tough weekends in Formula 1 to be fair,\u201d Lawson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterally I think three years ago was Zandvoort when Daniel had his injury and I jumped in. So, that\u2019s got to be number one toughest weekends ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would hope that this is not tougher than that, but it\u2019s going to be tricky for sure. I\u2019m grateful to have had those experiences in the past as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they sort of help build you for something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
FP1 for the Dutch Grand Prix gets underway at 12.30pm local time Friday (8.30pm AEST).<\/p>\n
2026 F1 Dutch Grand Prix \u2013 Schedule, how to watch, TV times & more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson has spoken for the first time since his last minute Red Bull call up. Image: XPB…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,60689,817,813,816,3352,918,12357,85],"class_list":["post-862465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dutch-gp","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-liam-lawson","tag-red-bull","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862465","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=862465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\u2018I](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/XPB_1429868_HiRes.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLiam Lawson has spoken for the first time since his last minute Red Bull call up. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n