Lawson wants answers now, but knows Red Bull don’t work that way
Liam Lawson’s year has already had enough plot twists — two early races in the senior Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen, then a swift return to Racing Bulls — and he’d quite like the next chapter written. Ideally by tomorrow.
That’s not how the Red Bull machine operates, of course. So for now, Lawson remains in the waiting room, very aware that his future beyond 2025 will be decided the old-fashioned way: lap time.
“I’d love to know tomorrow, honestly,” Lawson said in Singapore when asked about where he sits within Red Bull’s plans. “But obviously, in this camp, it’s very normal to be left on hold a little bit, and that’s how it is at the moment. I know the only thing that has control over that is my performance in the car.”
The Kiwi’s contract runs through the end of 2025, and while his form has rebounded since returning to Faenza, his last two weekends captured the stakes perfectly. A career-best fifth in Baku underlined the step he’s made this season. Then came Singapore: two trips to the wall in FP2 and FP3, and a compromised qualifying that left him 14th on the grid while teammate Isack Hadjar planted the sister car eighth.
Racing Bulls’ 2026 lineup is officially open. Lawson and Hadjar are both in the frame, and Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad is very much on the radar. Hadjar, who’s already bagged a maiden podium in his rookie campaign, has even been linked with a promotion to the senior team in 2026 in place of Yuki Tsunoda. The churn never stops: Helmut Marko has also held talks with ex-McLaren junior Alex Dunne about joining the Red Bull junior ranks.
Against that backdrop, Lawson’s not pretending the driver market offers much comfort. Multi-year deals help, until they don’t.
“I think unless you’re on multi-year contracts — and even then… Formula 1 contracts can be made to be broken,” he said. “At the end of the day, the only time you’re secure is when you’re performing, and I don’t think there’s many drivers, apart from some of the top guys, that are going to feel completely secure in the sport.”
If that sounds like a man used to the Red Bull school of hard knocks, it’s because he is. The programme drills that mindset in early.
“It’s something that we are very used to,” Lawson added. “Especially in the Red Bull programme, you’re introduced at a very young age to knowing the only way you step up through the ladder is by performing. You have that pressure all the time. It’s on a bigger scale [in F1], but it’s the same thing.”
The intra-team picture is tight. Lawson trails Hadjar by nine points in the standings, a gap influenced by the Frenchman’s podium but not yet decisive in a season that’s turned into a straight audition. The team target is far more immediate anyway: Racing Bulls are locked in a scrap for sixth in the Constructors’, and every Sunday counts.
“It’s nothing in particular, other than just scoring points and having good races,” Lawson said of his own objectives. “We’re fighting for P6 in the Constructors’, and that’s from a team focus. If we achieve that, naturally, that means that I’ve probably done my job.”
That’s the prism through which he’ll judge the rest of the year — keep the scoreboard ticking, keep the car in one piece, and keep the conversation about 2026 moving in the right direction. The Singapore bumps bit hard, but the bigger picture hasn’t changed: the quickest way to get Red Bull to pick up the phone is to give them no choice.
For Lawson, the message is simple enough. No noise, no politics, just performance. In this system, that’s the only guarantee anyone gets.
