Liam Lawson admits he was ‘naive’ about what Red Bull told him before Racing Bulls demotion

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Liam Lawson has finally started to show what the Kiwi can offer again, having needed to rebuild his confidence on the back of being demoted from Red Bull to Racing Bulls.

The 23-year-old started the 2025 F1 season by realising his dream of being a Red Bull driver after replacing Sergio Perez at the Milton Keynes squad. But Lawson only lasted two rounds at Red Bull before re-joining their junior team in a Racing Bulls seat swap with Yuki Tsunoda.

Lawson had earned his graduation to Red Bull after making only 11 Grand Prix appearances spread over the 2023 and 2024 terms at Racing Bulls. Yet his plight in Australia and China to start this season saw Helmut Marko admit it was a ‘mistake’ to promote Lawson to Red Bull.

Returning to Racing Bulls and having to drive a car with which he had zero prior experience meant Lawson took time to readjust in Faenza. The Kiwi failed to score a point over the first seven rounds of the 2025 season, but he has earned 20 points over the past seven rounds.

Liam Lawson was ‘naive’ to think Red Bull would give him more than two rounds

Now, Lawson has reflected on his time at Red Bull and admits he was ‘naive’ to believe they would afford more than two rounds to adjust. The Hastings native crashed in the Australian Grand Prix and was the slowest driver in qualifying for the F1 Sprint and Grand Prix in China.

READ MORE: Who is Racing Bulls F1 driver Liam Lawson? Everything you need to know

The Chinese Grand Prix was ultimately the straw that broke the camel’s back. Red Bull grew frustrated with Lawson’s difficulties adapting to the RB21, and used him finishing P12 in the Chinese GP to make a change. But Lawson feels Red Bull did not honour what they told him.

“In China, we took a shot in the dark with the set-up to try and learn something,” Lawson told RacingNews365. “For me, I was under the understanding it was to help me develop for the future [and] to have an understanding of the car.

“So, I was happy to drive with this sort of set-up. That performance was then used to demote me from the team, basically.”

Lawson added: “There were a few things over that time that made it not smooth. It wasn’t a clean couple of weekends. And by my own standards, they weren’t good enough. I was obviously trying as hard as I could, and I was trying to get up to speed as quickly as I could.

“As much as I look back now and go, ‘What could I have done to do that better?’, there are obviously things you look back in hindsight and go, ‘I wish that I’d done this differently to try and help me’.

“If I knew I was going to get two races, I would have probably done things slightly differently. But I didn’t at the time. I was maybe a bit naive, but I thought I was going to get longer and have time to learn.”

Liam Lawson rediscovered his confidence with Racing Bulls’ front suspension upgrade

Lawson struggled to adapt to the Red Bull RB21 after his promotion from Racing Bulls, as his pre-season testing in Bahrain and the Australian GP were tarnished by reliability issues. Red Bull then giving Lawson a “shot in the dark” set-up in China also created yet another hurdle.

READ MORE: All to know about Racing Bulls from team principal to Red Bull affiliation

After requiring a few rounds to then re-adapt to driving for Racing Bulls, Lawson has started to show his skills once more. The Kiwi took his first points of the 2025 season with P8 in the Monaco Grand Prix, before securing a P6 finish in Austria plus P8 in Belgium and in Hungary.

The front suspension upgrade that Racing Bulls took to the Austrian GP helped Lawson find his confidence in the VCARB 02, particularly in qualifying. His average qualifying position in the eight rounds without it was P14.3 versus P10.5 since, with P16 at Silverstone an outlier.

Only Max Verstappen has also scored more points among the Red Bull family than Lawson in the past seven rounds, with the four-time champion scoring 63 while Isack Hadjar has taken 15 for Racing Bulls. Tsunoda has not added to his 10 points in 2025 in the past seven rounds.