{"id":601569,"date":"2026-09-16T00:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601569\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T00:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:28:10","slug":"liam-lawson-makes-red-bull-deadline-claim-ahead-of-baku-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/601569\/","title":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson makes Red Bull deadline claim ahead of Baku GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liam Lawson<\/a> says he may not know until the eve of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix whether he\u2019ll race for Red Bull<\/a> Racing or Racing Bulls around the streets of Baku.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, dependent on Isack Hadjar\u2019s fitness with the Frenchman having missed three races after fracturing his wrist in a training session.<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson awaits Red Bull Racing decision for Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/p>\n

The injury, suffered just before Formula 1 returned from its summer break, kept Hadjar out of the Dutch Grand Prix with Lawson<\/a> substituting for him and scoring six points with a seventh-placed finish.<\/p>\n

The New Zealander remained in the car at Monza and Madrid, where he added a further eight points to his and Red Bull\u2019s tally for the season.<\/p>\n

Having been out of action for four weeks, Red Bull is hoping that the week off after Spain and before Azerbaijan will give Hadjar enough time to recover.<\/p>\n

But his return is not something the team is willing to rush.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a bit more time before Baku,\u201d team principal Laurent Mekies told Sky F1 in Madrid.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd honestly there is nothing wrong with his recovery. The recovery is going as planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome things take time, and we will take the time to evaluate before Baku and to put him on the sim.\u201d<\/p>\n

It does, however, mean Lawson remains in a holding pattern.<\/p>\n

While the New Zealander would like to prepare for the Baku race by focusing on one car, either the RB22 or his Racing Bulls VCARB03, he will instead have to split his pre-race preparations between the two cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more the prep,\u201d Lawson told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media in Madrid of the difficulty in not knowing which team he will be racing for.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, doing prep for both is a bit difficult, and getting used to different cars. <\/p>\n

\u201cComing to the end of the week, and now I feel quite comfortable in this car [the RB22]. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I think just going forward, it\u2019s the unknown sort of all the way up to the race weekends, probably all the way up to Wednesday or Thursday for Baku will be potentially when that\u2019s decided, and that\u2019s quite tricky to mentally prepare for which car I\u2019ll drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time, like I said, the more time I drive this, the more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while Lawson was the leading Racing Bulls driver in the standings before his switch to Red Bull, he reckons going back to his VCARB03 will be difficult such is the difference between the two cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing back now would be quite tough,\u201d he said. \u201cJust different. It\u2019s completely different to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawson has scored in two of his three appearances for Red Bull, a notable contrast to his two performances last season with the team that abruptly ended without a point on the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been overall quite positive,\u201d he said. \u201cI managed to score in obviously two of the three. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think Monza was tough, just with the whole weekend and the engine penalty, and then obviously having damage in the race really ruined it for us. But I think overall we\u2019ve had good speed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think this weekend was the first time where I felt that we could really fight in quali and fight at the front. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we didn\u2019t get it together in Q3, but we had good speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/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

Read Next:\u00a0Steiner calls Norris \u2018unprofessional\u2019 over Coca-Cola cooldown room row<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson says he may not know until the eve of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix whether he\u2019ll race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25798,1463,5704,111,43,139,69,20114,12362,213],"class_list":["post-601569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-azerbaijan-grand-prix","tag-home-page","tag-liam-lawson","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-racing-bulls","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}