Liam Lawson has earned praise from Naomi Schiff for the way he responded to his \u201cborderline embarrassing\u201d Red Bull demotion, with the New Zealander establishing himself as Racing Bulls\u2019 clear team leader.<\/p>\n
Lawson was promoted to Red Bull last year, signing on as Max Verstappen\u2019s teammate after a late-season six-race audition with Red Bull\u2019s sister team in 2024.<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson praiesed after Red Bull demotion<\/p>\n
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for news you can trust<\/p>\n His time with the senior team, though, lasted just two race weekends as he was unable to drag himself out of Q1.<\/p>\n He was dropped on the Monday after race two, the Chinese Grand Prix, demoted to Racing Bulls with Yuki Tsunoda taking his seat. <\/p>\n Announcing the switch, then team principal Christian Horner said Red Bull had a \u201cduty of care to protect\u201d Lawson, who had struggled.<\/p>\n It was a hard hit for a driver who had always dreamed of racing for Red Bull, but as the months went by, Lawson not only absorbed the blow, but he also rose to the challenge.<\/p>\n Continuing with Racing Bulls this season, the 24-year-old has stamped his authority over his rookie teammate Arvid Lindblad. Not only has he outscored his teammate by 39 points to 20, but he has also yet to finish a Grand Prix behind the Briton.<\/p>\n Put to Schiff that Lawson<\/a> has been a revelation this season, she told Sky Sports F1: \u201cIt has been.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really tough what they [Red Bull] did to Liam Lawson. They promoted him into that seat quite quickly, and they removed him from that seat even quicker.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd yes, that is very demotivating. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s borderline embarrassing sometimes for drivers. <\/p>\n \u201cYou come in there, you think you\u2019ve made it to the big team, and then you just get whacked back, and that\u2019s not nice. It\u2019s not, it\u2019s not a good feeling.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s managed to turn it around, and I think if anything, it\u2019s for the better.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s in a car that\u2019s clearly competing well, in an environment that clearly is nurturing them a little bit better than what the old version of Red Bull used to do, and pulling out great results week in, week out.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re now putting a lot of pressure on Alpine for their fifth spot in the constructors\u2019 title; happy times for both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Liam Lawson v Arvid Lindblad: Racing Bulls F1 2026 scores<\/p>\n F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates<\/a><\/p>\n F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates<\/a><\/p>\n Last month, Lawson spoke extensively<\/a> about his Red Bull exit and how he felt he was unfairly treated by the team.<\/p>\n While Horner and the team billed it as their \u201cduty of care to protect\u201d to protect the driver who was mentally struggling, Lawson said that could not have been further from the truth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thing was played out to be me being mentally struggling and all this stuff, and like they were doing it to protect me,\u201d he told the High Performance Racing podcast. \u201cThat honestly just could not be further from what it was actually like.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, yeah, again at the time those two weekends, I remember there was a lot. There was already talk about, \u2018okay, you know, it\u2019s a hard time for him, he must be struggling mentally\u2019, and stuff like this.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, and I thought, rather than me getting out there and saying I\u2019m totally fine and argue against it, I was let me take my responsibility here and say I can do a better job, which is what I tried to do on this two weekends.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I get in front of camera, I was trying to be grateful and say, \u2018this is not good enough, I need to do a better job\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then it was all that that was taken to, \u2018oh, he\u2019s mentally struggling, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re helping him out\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n