Liam Lawson says he isn’t focussed on a possible Red Bull return in 2026. Image: XPB Images
The New Zealander began the year in one of F1’s most coveted seats, promoted to partner Max Verstappen following Sergio Perez’s departure at the end of 2024.
The move was seen as a bold statement of faith from Red Bull, with Lawson having impressed during substitute appearances for the junior team in 2023 and 2024.
However, the promotion proved short-lived. After two challenging races spent at the back of the grid, Red Bull u-turned, sending Lawson back to Racing Bulls while promoting Yuki Tsunoda in his place.
Since returning to Racing Bulls, Lawson has collected 20 points from a string of competitive drives, including a career-best sixth place at the Austrian Grand Prix.
That tally leaves him just two points shy of rookie teammate Isack Hadjar and comfortably ahead of Tsunoda, who has managed only 10 points since moving to the senior squad.
Despite the statistical edge over his former teammate — and growing speculation over Tsunoda’s long-term prospects with Red Bull — Lawson is refusing to be drawn into talk about his own future.
“Honestly, in terms of my future, it’s been so busy this year that I’m not really thinking about it,” he told PlanetF1.com.
“I’m focused on having some good races. Obviously, we’ve had some recently, but three of them isn’t enough over 12 races, or however many it’s been, so we need to do more of this, and then we’ll see.”
The 23-year-old was the best finishing Red Bull-supported driver at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, placing eighth, just ahead of his former teammate Verstappen, who finished ninth.
Lawson said his two-race spell alongside Verstappen at Red Bull at least offered a rare glimpse into the level of precision and performance that has made the Dutchman a four-time world champion, but the brevity of the stint meant he left with fewer insights than he had hoped for.
“I was very excited to have that opportunity to basically see everything that he was doing in detail,” Lawson told RacingNews365.com.
“Because I think the thing is, to be honest, we have so much data shared across teams at the moment.
“It’s very simple data, but as a driver, it’s the main stuff that we’re looking at, speed traces, you know, where somebody’s braking, throttle places, gears, things like that that we use.
“We actually can see across the grid what people are doing. So I already compare with Max a lot to see how he’s approaching corners and things like that.
“So it was the detailed stuff that you wouldn’t get across teams that I was excited to have, but in two weekends, it’s very hard to take too much from that.”
In his two races for Red Bull, Lawson failed to finish in Australia and finished 12th in China, while Verstappen finished second and fourth respectively.
