A year ago, Liam Lawson was still picking up the pieces after being dropped from Red Bull’s senior team almost as quickly as he’d arrived. Twelve months on, the mood around him is markedly different: calmer, more grown-up, and — crucially — productive.
Lawson’s opening to 2026 has been the sort of start that buys you breathing space in this paddock. Three races, three points finishes, 10 points on the board and 10th in the championship. It’s not a headline-grabbing haul in itself, but it’s enough to underline that his reset at Racing Bulls has turned into something more substantial than damage limitation.
And yet, when Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane talks about Lawson’s next step, he isn’t asking for a deeper lunge into the lap-time abyss. Quite the opposite. The message is simple: stop giving away weekends.
“I see immense talent there. Really,” Permane said, speaking to media including this outlet. “Some of his performances last year were outstanding.
“What he needs to do, and what he is doing so far, is eliminate mistakes. We can’t be qualifying third on the grid one weekend and then out in Q1 the following weekend. That sort of thing.”
It’s a pointed example, but it captures what Racing Bulls believe is sitting in Lawson’s way. Not raw pace — Permane is adamant that’s already present — but the volatility that can make a driver look brilliant on Saturday and anonymous seven days later. In a midfield where margins are thin and opportunity comes and goes with each session, those swings are expensive.
Permane’s framing is interesting because it hints at how teams judge drivers once the “is he quick?” question has been answered. F1 has always prized speed, but speed with jagged edges tends to get you the kind of career arc Lawson experienced last spring — opportunities arriving fast, and disappearing even faster. A driver who can bank points when the car is merely decent, and avoid unforced errors when it isn’t, becomes useful in a way that highlights and hype can’t replicate.
“And if he doesn’t improve his top level, if he just eliminates the bad level and lifts everything up to what we know he’s capable of, that will already be a fantastic step,” Permane added. “I’d much rather he works on… not the absolute pace, because I think that’s there — it’s working on the consistency.”
It’s also a subtly political statement, whether intended or not. In 2026, you can be fast and still be vulnerable; you can also be “merely” very good but relentlessly dependable and suddenly you’re the driver teams build their weekends around. For Racing Bulls, that dependability matters because it turns a midfield car into a points machine — and points, not potential, are what get rewarded.
Lawson himself has sounded encouraged rather than defensive about where the team is. After the Japanese Grand Prix, he suggested Racing Bulls haven’t even shown their hand yet in terms of outright performance — which, if you take him at face value, makes the early points tally feel like a foundation rather than a ceiling.
“I think, to be honest, we haven’t actually been that fast, but still managed to come away with three points finishes,” Lawson said. “So I think it’s when we get a really quick car, we’ll obviously be in a much better place.
“And if we keep making the decisions we’re making, I think it’s quite exciting.”
That’s the key line: “the decisions we’re making”. Lawson’s best seasons in single-seaters always had an edge of momentum about them — the sense that once a team and driver are aligned on direction, his confidence follows. Racing Bulls appear to be offering him exactly what he needs right now: a stable environment, a clear brief, and a boss who isn’t asking him to be a hero every weekend.
It also reframes the way Lawson’s story is being told. The Red Bull episode will always hang around as context — it’s Formula 1, nobody forgets — but it no longer defines the narrative. What defines it now is whether Lawson can turn a strong start into a clean, repeatable level across the season. If he does, he won’t need to chase performances; they’ll come to him, because teams notice drivers who stop beating themselves.
For now, Racing Bulls aren’t asking Lawson to find an extra two tenths. They’re asking him to protect what he already has. In a midfield where a tiny wobble can send you from Q3 to traffic, that might be the more difficult job — and the one that ultimately decides how far his post-Red Bull career can go.
