By the time Liam Lawson shuffled back into Faenza, the bounce wasn’t quite there, according to the man now running the Racing Bulls garage.
Alan Permane, promoted to team principal after Laurent Mekies’ move to Red Bull, says Lawson needed a nudge to rediscover his spark following a bruising two-race detour at the senior team. The Kiwi was bumped up to Red Bull for 2025, then promptly sent back after struggling to make the RB21 dance.
“He won’t thank me for saying this, but he definitely was a bit downbeat,” Permane said at the Hungarian Grand Prix. “He didn’t have a spring in his step, and we’ve done what we can to help him there.”
Lawson insists the narrative about a shattered confidence was wide of the mark. He’s been bullish that self-belief never wavered, even as early season problems snowballed. “It’s been very heavily speculated that my confidence took a hit, which is completely false,” he told F1’s official website. “I needed time, and I wasn’t given it.”
Time, and a car he actually knew. Lawson hadn’t tested the VCARB02 before clambering back in, and the reset took a few rounds. Monaco delivered the first points of his 2025 campaign; since then he’s added three more points finishes and now sits just two behind teammate Isack Hadjar — the French rookie who lit it up straight out of the box in Japan.
Behind the scenes, Racing Bulls worked to get Lawson comfortable. Permane points to a “bit of a breakthrough” in Austria after the team introduced a new front suspension, refined in the simulator. “He really liked it, was enthusiastic about it, and it worked there. We saw in Spa again, he’s performing… in Austria, he had a spring back in his step.”
It’s a far cry from those opening Red Bull weekends, where Lawson toiled at the back as the RB21 refused to cooperate. Then-team boss Christian Horner framed the early switch as protection, not punishment. “It has been difficult to see Liam struggle with the RB21 at the first two races… we have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam,” Horner said at the time.
Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer echoed that the saga weighed on Lawson, if only briefly. “He was puzzled and a bit sad,” Bayer admitted, noting a run of ill-timed yellows and traffic that undercut promising laps. “Now, he is fun, happy, like in his best days.”
Lawson isn’t arguing with the outside read — he just knows his own meter. “Everybody’s going to have their own opinions,” he said in Budapest. “That’s fine, but I know how I feel.”
The scorecard says the recovery’s real. The swagger? According to Permane, that’s back too.
