Lawson locks in 2026 Racing Bulls seat as Bayer hails “stabilising” form
Liam Lawson has earned a Racing Bulls contract for 2026, a nod from Faenza that the New Zealander has weathered this year’s turbulence and settled into a rhythm worth backing.
Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer said the team’s analysis showed Lawson’s trajectory had flattened into something solid after a staccato 2025 that included a short, jarring spell in the senior Red Bull team before a mid-season return to the sister outfit.
“To be honest, we see his performance stabilising, and I think that was the most important thing for us,” Bayer told RacingNews365. “When the decision was made to give him the seat next year, that was the most important factor.”
Lawson’s year has been very Red Bull: abrupt calls, sudden opportunities, and the need to adapt on the fly. He spent much of 2025 paired with rookie Isack Hadjar at Racing Bulls and, early doors, often sat behind the Frenchman while he got his hands back around the car and the people. As the season matured, so did Lawson. The gap closed, and on Sundays in particular he started to lean on his race craft, occasionally having the legs on Hadjar in equal machinery.
Hadjar’s reward is a big one: promotion to Red Bull to partner Max Verstappen in 2026. Lawson’s is different, but no less important—security and a platform to build. He’ll stay put at Racing Bulls alongside Arvid Lindblad, the only rookie slated for the 2026 grid.
If Lawson sounded tense before the call, it’s because he was. The 23-year-old admitted he waited until the Qatar Grand Prix—the penultimate round—to find out which way the roulette wheel would land. It’s a familiar rhythm inside Red Bull’s ecosystem, where decisions are late, margins are thin, and resilience is part of the job description.
Bayer didn’t hide that Lawson needed a reset after the senior team cameo. He described the Kiwi as “a little shaken” on his return, but pointed to the Faenza operation’s muscle memory for reintegration. This is a team built to onboard, develop and, occasionally, rehabilitate.
“It’s one of the strengths of the team here that everyone understands these things can happen,” Bayer said. “Because we are constantly developing talent, we are used to changes, even in the middle of a season. Nobody panics… For us, it’s always, ‘Okay, fine. Let’s find Liam’s seat and put him back in it.’”
From there, the dial moved the right way. The race pace, Bayer noted, produced the right kind of evidence—weekends where Lawson was simply quicker than Hadjar. The caveat is familiar: Saturdays still need work. One-lap execution has been the lingering weak spot, the difference between a point and a shrug in the modern midfield.
“We need to work on his speed in qualifying, but there is a lot of potential,” Bayer added.
That’s the crux of the 2026 bet. Racing Bulls want a Lawson whose baseline is higher and whose ceilings appear more often. With Lindblad coming in fresh, their driver pairing balances experience with upside, and gives the programme continuity after promoting Hadjar.
For Lawson, it’s also a chance to breathe—and to sharpen. He’s been in the Red Bull junior orbit long enough to know how quickly the scenery changes. A second consecutive season with the same team, same engineers and a clearer brief is exactly the kind of stability he hasn’t enjoyed in years.
There’s no guarantee that stability turns into fireworks. But if you watched the back half of his 2025, you saw a driver who started playing the long game again—managing tyres, threading strategy, and doing more than just surviving the sharper elbows around him. The job now is to bolt that onto cleaner Saturdays and let the weekends come to him.
The Red Bull pipeline has already judged him worthy of another lap. In a year defined by quick pivots and late calls, that’s no small thing.
