Liam Lawson has been on a quiet road to redemption in recent rounds, following his brutal axing by Red Bull after just two races this season.<\/p>\n
How do you recover from being fired after only two races?<\/p>\n
That was the question facing Lawson when the axe fell on his Red Bull dream. His promotion to the senior team alongside Max Verstappen ended in a brutal, premature demotion back to the Racing Bulls squad following the Chinese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda was swiftly promoted in his place, with the entire situation shocking the Formula 1 paddock.<\/p>\n
Many believed Lawson would be the driver to finally master the second Red Bull seat \u2014 especially after his 11 impressive performances for the sister team across 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
However, Lawson looked a shadow of his former self alongside Verstappen. He crashed out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, then finished 12th in China.<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s senior figures had already seen enough and made the staggering decision to switch Lawson and Tsunoda.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the decision, then-Red Bull boss Christian Horner said: “We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tLawson’s recovery<\/p>\n
A return to Racing Bulls moved the New Zealander out of the intense spotlight that comes with being Max Verstappen\u2019s teammate, allowing his reputation to be quietly rebuilt.<\/p>\n
Lawson initially struggled back in the Faenza-based outfit and was regularly outshone by fellow full-time rookie Isack Hadjar on the other side of the garage.<\/p>\n
However, his pace has improved since Formula 1 entered the European leg of the season, with points scored in four of the last seven Grands Prix.<\/p>\n
He reached the final stage of qualifying on each of those occasions, and the performance gap between him and Hadjar has significantly narrowed \u2014 highlighted by Lawson finishing sixth in Austria.<\/p>\n
Hadjar has scored just two points more than Lawson with 10 rounds remaining, marking a major step forward for Hastings-born driver.<\/p>\n
Lawson\u2019s improvement has increased the pressure on Hadjar, resulting in mixed performances from the French-Algerian.<\/p>\n
After months of struggles, Lawson is finally showcasing the ability that earned him a Red Bull promotion in the first place, as Sergio Perez\u2019s replacement. Despite this progress, he remains aware of how quickly things can change.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s very easy to get ahead of yourself in the sport, and I think that we’ve had a really good couple of weekends and the speed has been very good,” Lawson exclusively told RacingNews365.<\/p>\n
“But things change very, very quickly. So I think the approach for me stays the same as it has been for most of the season.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s very, very close and competitive. For me, it’s just extracting everything out of me, but I feel comfortable in the car.”<\/p>\n
The dream of a Red Bull future may be over, for now. But in the relentless F1 midfield, the 23-year-old is proving that while the axe may have fallen, it did not cut deep enough to stop a driver who is once again showing his true worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson has been on a quiet road to redemption in recent rounds, following his brutal axing by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,2476,578,2479,2477,2480,2478,930,576,577,932,1885,2475,582,82],"class_list":["post-87901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","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\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}