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Liam Lawson was arguably one of the drivers who improved most as the 2025 F1 season progressed. He needed time to hit form after Red Bull dumped him out.
Lawson returned to former team Racing Bulls, and he didn’t score his first points until round eight in Monaco. But in the final two-thirds of the season, he scored 34.
That was only two fewer than teammate Isack Hadjar, who will partner Max Verstappen next year, managed in the same period, even though the Frenchman scored a podium in the Netherlands.
Does Liam Lawson crash too often?
Lawson’s results were strong enough to keep him on the F1 grid and deny Yuki Tsunoda a soft landing at Racing Bulls. He will partner the next young talent off the production line, Arvid Lindblad, in 2026.
Guenther Steiner gives Liam Lawson a C for the 2025 season
Former Haas team boss Guenther Steiner placed every 2025 driver into graded tiers on the Red Flags podcast. He gave Lawson a C.
“Solid C,” Steiner said. “He improved, came up, tough first races with Red Bull, so C. He made progress.”
One potential criticism of Lawson is that he’s involved in too many incidents. With only 35 starts under his belt, he remains relatively inexperienced.
What would you change on our 2025 F1 tier list?
Christijan Albers says Lawson ‘always’ crashes the car and could point to his tally of five DNFs last year – one of the highest on the grid.
Lawson was the only driver penalised for moving erratically in a battle with another car this year.
When it was put to Steiner that the Kiwi is similar to Kevin Magnussen, he said: “Yeah, he’s always around. When there’s some mess, he’s in it. He can’t keep out of it.”
Magnussen accumulated 37 penalty points in his career, which ranks him near the top of the all-time list. He lost his seat at Haas at the end of the 2024 season.
How did Guenther Steiner grade Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar?
Even though Red Bull favoured Lawson when picking their 2026 line-ups, Steiner also placed Tsunoda in the ‘C’ tier.
Tsunoda finished 17th in the championship, only outscoring the Alpine drivers and Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto. He only finished inside the top eight twice despite Red Bull’s front-running status.
Bortoleto was the only other driver who was awarded a C grade.
Meanwhile, Steiner gave Hadjar an A-, placing him in the same bracket as Kimi Antonelli, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.
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