Lawson Left in the Dark: Red Bull’s Short-Sighted Gamble on Verstappen’s Shadow – It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Liam Lawson, one of the most promising young drivers from the southern hemisphere, was finally handed the keys to the fastest seat in Formula One: the Red Bull RB21. After a tumultuous 2024 season saw Sergio Pérez ousted from the team, Red Bull opted to test Lawson alongside their golden child, four-time world champion Max Verstappen.

But just two races later, the Kiwi was gone. Back to the B-team he went, not with a promotion under his arm, but with a few bruises to his confidence and a quiet set of grievances that, months later, are beginning to surface.

 

Thrown in at the Deep End

Lawson’s brief cameo at Red Bull encompassed the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix, both of which delivered little more than humiliation for the young driver. Melbourne saw him crash out, while Shanghai concluded with a lowly twelfth-place finish. Not the debut Lawson had envisioned when he was suddenly parachuted into the second Red Bull seat.

But what truly stings, according to Lawson, is not the results on the scoreboard. It’s what went on—or more precisely, what didn’t go on—behind the scenes.

Speaking to RacingNews365, Lawson pulled back the curtain on what appears to be a rather amateurish approach by the world championship-winning team to onboarding a rookie in the most demanding cockpit on the grid.

“If you look at how other teams have approached trying to bring in young drivers and look at the testing, the time in the cockpit, the volume that, for example, Kimi Antonelli completed before racing this year — we did none of that,” Lawson said, with the composure of a man who knows he was set up to fail.

His debut, he revealed, took place on two circuits he had never driven on before. And to make matters worse, one of them was a sprint weekend, offering significantly reduced practice time. One wonders if Red Bull were hoping Verstappen’s brilliance would simply rub off via osmosis.

 

Verstappen: Idol or Executioner?

Like many up-and-comers, Lawson had hoped to learn from Verstappen. Not just observe from afar, but actually study the inner workings of what makes the Dutchman tick at breakneck speeds. And in the era of shared telemetry, Lawson believed this was finally possible.

“I was excited to see everything he does in detail,” Lawson admitted. “We can share a lot of data between teams these days. Simple things like braking, throttle, gearshifts — we can see that for everyone on the grid.”

But here’s the rub: while standard telemetry is one thing, the juicy stuff — how the car is set up, what Max communicates to his engineers, how he dances on the edge of grip without falling off — that remains very much on a need-to-know basis. And Lawson, it seems, was not one of those in the know.

“In two weekends, you can’t get much out of it,” he added. And just like that, the curtain closed on his brief and baffling Red Bull experience.

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Sacrificed on the Altar of Setup Experiments

To compound the confusion, Lawson disclosed that in Shanghai, Red Bull opted to run what he described as a “shot in the dark” setup. Intended to aid his development, the setup was unconventional and far from optimal. While he welcomed the chance to learn, the decision ultimately backfired.

“My performance was then essentially used to demote me from the team,” Lawson said, pointing out the cruel irony that an experimental setup designed to help him grow was then used as evidence that he wasn’t good enough to stay.

If that feels harsh, it’s because it is. Here was a driver tasked with taming a notoriously temperamental machine, unfamiliar with the tracks, running on limited data, and given a setup that, by his own admission, bordered on a gamble. The result? He was shuffled back to the Racing Bulls while Yuki Tsunoda, previously demoted himself, was given another chance.

 

A Comeback in the Shadows

Back in the VCARB garage, Lawson appears to be regaining his footing. He’s currently sitting on 20 points — a solid haul that puts him just two shy of his teammate Isack Hadjar. His sixth-place finish in Austria marked a personal high and hinted at what might have been, had he been given a more structured chance at the top.

Meanwhile, Tsunoda, now grappling with the RB21 and its microscopic operating window, is languishing on just 10 points. His struggles, combined with Honda’s impending departure to Aston Martin, make his future at Red Bull increasingly precarious.

All the while, Lawson continues to focus on the here and now. “Honestly, I’m not thinking about my future,” he told reporters. “We’ve had a few good races, but three good races out of twelve isn’t enough. We need to show this more often.”

It’s the kind of response that oozes maturity. And perhaps, just perhaps, he’s learned more about what it takes to survive in Formula One than any telemetry from Verstappen could have taught him.

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Red Bull’s Rookie Roulette

The whole affair has raised eyebrows within the paddock. Red Bull’s driver development programme, once the gold standard, now seems to be playing a dangerous game of musical chairs — and the music stops rather quickly if your surname isn’t Verstappen.

Questions must be asked: why drop Lawson into a sprint weekend with no prior experience at the circuit? Why experiment with car setup in a high-pressure environment and then judge the driver on those results? And why, despite the shared data culture, is meaningful access still so opaque?

Red Bull may point to the unforgiving nature of the sport. But when that ruthlessness becomes indistinguishable from poor planning, the cracks begin to show.

 

The Verdict from the Paddock — and You

As it stands, Liam Lawson’s career in Formula One hangs in limbo. Promising performances at Racing Bulls suggest he deserves another shot. But after the Red Bull experience, would he even want it?

Has Red Bull turned its once-revered junior system into a driver meat grinder? Or was Lawson simply not ready for the leap? The paddock is divided. The results, however, speak for themselves.

But what say you, the jury?

Was Lawson betrayed by the system, or was this simply a harsh lesson in the brutal school of Formula One? Let us know in the comments below.

We’re trying to grow a new online F1 community where your voice matters just as much as ours. Join the discussion now in the TJ13 Jury Room on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/708095665600791

This article was brought to you by The Judge.

 

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