Lawson’s Baku punch lands at the right moment — even if Marko didn’t pick up
Liam Lawson delivered exactly the kind of weekend that keeps Red Bull’s talent machine paying attention, even if the call he might’ve been waiting for never came.
Fifth place in Baku — a career best — arrived with all the hallmarks of a quietly decisive audition. Qualifying third on the streets, absorbing the pressure, then fending off Yuki Tsunoda late on to bank 10 points and drag Racing Bulls up to sixth in the Constructors’ standings, nudging past Aston Martin. That’s not just a good Sunday. That’s leverage.
“Normally the phone calls are after the bad ones, so I haven’t heard much,” Lawson said, laughing. He didn’t sound bothered. If anything, it was on-brand. Praising drivers publicly isn’t really Helmut Marko’s love language; grading them, often in real time, is.
Lawson’s year has been a trip. He started at Red Bull, lasted two race weekends, and was then shuffled across to Racing Bulls after three Q1 exits in as many tries. That kind of whiplash can break a driver. In this case, it sharpened one. Baku was the payoff: pace on Saturday, maturity on Sunday, and the sort of composure that tends to stick in the memory when people sit down to decide who gets what for 2026.
Right now, the only thing locked in at Red Bull is the obvious: Max Verstappen will lead the senior team into the new rules era. Everything around him is fluid. Isack Hadjar is widely touted as the favourite for the second Red Bull seat but hasn’t been confirmed. Racing Bulls’ two spots are even more volatile. Arvid Lindblad is heavily linked with one, while Lawson and Tsunoda are in that same mix to partner him. And there’s a new name in the rumour mill: Alex Dunne, freshly unattached after splitting with McLaren’s academy, is understood to be at least on the longlist.
It’s classic Red Bull theatre — talent everywhere, chairs not quite enough, music still playing. Marko’s timeline hasn’t changed either. “We want to have a guideline in place after Mexico,” he told RTL last month. “The end of the year is the very last date for us. We want to see how Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson perform so we can make the right decisions for next year.”
Translation: the audition isn’t over.
Lawson isn’t pretending otherwise. “It’s clear for all of us… we’re well aware that we need to have good performances to stay in the sport,” he said. “Baku was great, but obviously we need more of that going through the next few races.”
He’d love certainty — who wouldn’t? — but he knows better than to wait by the phone. “I’d love to know tomorrow, honestly,” Lawson admitted. “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.”
There’s a candour to him that feels born of the Red Bull system. He doesn’t dress it up: multi-year deals aren’t ironclad, security is a myth, and pressure isn’t a phase. “The only time you’re secure is when you’re performing,” he said. “We’re introduced at a very young age knowing that the only way you step up through the ladder is by performing… it’s on a bigger scale but it’s the same thing.”
Strip away the noise and Lawson’s Baku weekend told a simple story: when the car gave him a platform, he overdelivered. That matters. Racing Bulls has been an awkward read this year — flashes of speed, not enough returns — and a driver who banks points on tough weekends is valuable to both teams in the Red Bull ecosystem.
There’s still plenty for Marko and co. to digest. Tsunoda’s ceiling versus Lawson’s growth curve. The risk/reward on promoting Hadjar straight into the Verstappen firing line. Whether Lindblad is ready to be thrown in alongside either incumbent. And Dunne, the wildcard, hovering on the edges.
Lawson’s job is straightforward and brutal: keep making this hard for them. If he strings together more Baku-level weekends, the silence on his phone will be the least of Red Bull’s problems. The list of available seats hasn’t grown — but his case just did.
