Liam Lawson: The Heir to the Red Bull Racing Throne

2025 is here. Happy New Year! Time to make some vague commitment about going to the gym or eating more leaves. Jokes aside, one guy who surely didn't miss out on the festivities was a young man from New Zealand named Liam Lawson, who is going to be taking one of the two Red Bull Racing seats for the 2025 Formula 1 season. This is the moment any young racer driver works for their whole life; the opportunity to compete on the big stage. How did he get here?

Competition was Heating Up

In 2025, Red Bull Racing wants to try something new. Other teams caught up to Red Bull in 2024, with the likes of Ferrari and McLaren knocking on their doorstep. Last season, Red Bull fell short of securing the constructors championship (a trophy awarded to the team with the most points from both drivers combined), and only narrowly seized the drivers championship (which is based on which individual driver did the best throughout the entire season). For the last few years, both of these accomplishments seemingly came without so much as a sweat from the well-oiled Red Bull machine. Times are changing, and Red Bull intends to continue adapting.

Red Bull's star driver is Max Verstappen, who has broken multiple records recently and is already in the discussion as one of the best drivers of all time. He's great, and Red Bull is of course keeping him and paying him whatever he wants.

Since 2021, Max Verstappen has been teammates with another driver, Sergio Perez. Perez was a great driver, but his performances recently have left a bit to be desired (maybe a lot to be desired if you're name starts with Christian and ends with Horner) and this lackluster showing from Perez no doubt contributed to Red Bull's overall decline in the constructor's championship last season. Over time, Red Bull began to realize that they should evaluate the potential replacement options they had. So, they did.

Enter Liam Lawson

This guy brings a lot to the table; he's a young, capable, and exciting figure that is surely more malleable than the older F1 guard. His performance on the track in an F1 car has already been proven to a degree because he was the reserve driver for Red Bull/Alphatari last season and did great in the few races he participated in. People were probably wondering "Who is this guy?" whenever his name popped up on the TV, but most people soon realized he was plenty capable of being in an F1 car.

The loss of someone like Perez is not to be understated, as the Mexican brought a lot to the table for fans and sponsors in regions such as Central and South America. The goal of F1 at the end of the day is to make money, even if it means pissing off certain fanbases. Red Bull was apparently willing to sacrifice that in the hopes of returning to their dominant form of prior years.

The decision for who should replace Perez was meticulously deliberated over several months at Red Bull's headquarters in Fuschl, Austria. Another contender for the replacement seat along with Liam Lawson was Yuki Tsunoda, a spirited Japanese driver with a fiery temperament. Despite his talent, Tsunoda's occasional passionate outbursts may have influenced Red Bull's choice to promote the more composed Lawson. Tsunoda does remain in F1, which technically always leaves the possibility of moving to other teams open.

The following are comments made by Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing's team principal when asked about the decision process.

It was very, very tight between the two of them. I mean, Yuki is a very fast driver. He's got three or four seasons of experience now. He did a very good job in the tire test for us in Abu Dhabi where the engineers were impressed with how he performed.

With Liam, when you look and go into the analytics of his race, pace was slightly better in the races that he did. His qualifying pace was very tight with Yuki, and you've got to assume that the potential with Liam having only done 11 grand prix, is he's only going to get better and stronger. He's shown real mental resilience and toughness.

"A couple of things have stood out with me with Liam - how versatile he is," Horner said. "You put him into a situation, he gets on with it. If you remember his debut in Zandvoort after Daniel broke his fingers, he was racing against Max on his out lap.

Early Beginnings

With parents apparently set on giving him a chance in motorsport, Liam Lawson started competitively racing go-carts at just seven years old. As he matured in his teens, the potential started to manifest itself, eventually gaining notice from some people at Red Bull when he joined the junior program in 2019.

Lawson advanced quickly, moving from Formula 3 in 2020 to Formula 2 by 2021. For context, the best drivers in F3 graduate to F2, and the exceptional few who excel there earn a shot at F1.

Here is a shortened comment from Liam Lawson on signing with Red Bull.

"You come into F1 and you know, you're basically trying to prove yourself to a top team because you know you're never gonna win a world championship in a midfield team. You're not racing the Ferrari's and Mercedes and Red Bulls. You're in your own sort of division and trying to survive and then you get the chance to go to a team that actually is fighting, you know Max won the world championship this year, so yeah it's, it's mad." - Liam Lawson on the Pitstop podcast

He's Made It! Can He Keep The Job?

Liam's incredible journey into Formula 1 is something that every racer dreams of achieving. The young man has shown his potential in the few races he's competed in and arguably the biggest team in F1 has taken a huge chance on this "new kid on the block." This is a major bet for Red Bull, but their chips are behind him. Good luck dude!

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