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Liam Lawson will enter the 2026 season with a heightened awareness of what it takes to be an F1 driver, as the Racing Bulls ace prepares for his second full year on the grid.
The 23-year-old has been around the paddock for a number of seasons and made his debut as an injury stand-in for Daniel Ricciardo during the 2023 campaign. But Red Bull only gifted Lawson a full-time drive for the first time when he initially joined them for the start of 2025.
Red Bull demoted Lawson back to Racing Bulls after just two rounds in their main team after failing to adapt to the tricky RB21 at circuits he had never driven on in Formula 1 in Australia and China. He saw out the rest of 2025 at Racing Bulls and earned a new contract for 2026.
With Arvid Lindblad joining to fill Isack Hadjar’s void following his promotion to replace Yuki Tsunoda, Lawson will act as Racing Bulls’ team leader in 2026. The Kiwi persuaded Red Bull to re-sign him for another year after turning his 2025 around after returning to Racing Bulls.
In 2026, Arvid Lindblad will score ??? points…
How do you think 2026's only F1 rookie will fare? Let us know in the comments
Liam Lawson is now ‘more aware’ of the mental challenge of back-to-back F1 race weekends
Finally contesting a full campaign in the longest F1 season to date also made Lawson realise the “very tough” mental challenge of having to move on from one race weekend to the next in a short space of time. F1 held a record 24 Grands Prix and six Sprint events during 2025.
READ MORE: Who is Racing Bulls F1 driver Liam Lawson? Everything you need to know
Lawson told RacingNews365: “The biggest thing about Formula 1, compared to other racing categories, is the time between races.
“Sometimes you think you’re very well prepared. Then you get to a race weekend, and before you know it, you’re in quali, and maybe you haven’t had a good session.
“You’re trying to learn from these things that happen in a race weekend. But very quickly, especially if you’re in a triple-header, you’re on to the next weekend. You really have to just take the most important things that you can from a weekend and move on to the next one.
“Mentally, it’s a very tough thing to have to constantly do, through the highs [and] through the lows. You have a great weekend, and the next weekend you have a terrible weekend, and it’s battling that emotion that you’re basically fighting with the whole year.
“And that’s something that has been more intense than ever with how many races we have. It’s something that now I’m obviously much more aware of.”
Liam Lawson must put his learnings into practice at Racing Bulls in 2026
The 2026 season will again see F1 stage a record 24 Grands Prix and six Sprint events, from March 6-8 in Australia until December 4-6 in Abu Dhabi. Pre-season testing will also start in Barcelona on January 26-30, before further tests in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20.
READ MORE: F1 2025 teammate head-to-heads, including Grand Prix and Sprint results
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Lawson only contested five Grands Prix and one F1 Sprint during his brief run as a stand-in for Ricciardo in 2023 with AlphaTauri (as Racing Bulls were called at the time). He also only contested six Grands Prix and three Sprints after replacing Ricciardo at Racing Bulls in 2024.
The New Zealander’s efforts over those 11 appearances convinced Red Bull to promote him to their main team for the start of the 2025 season. Yet Lawson could not adapt to the RB21 while Red Bull tried to fix the car’s through-corner balance problems at the start of the year.
Lawson feels he “missed a lot” of development time in 2025 by then re-joining Racing Bulls mid-season, and having to learn a new car and new support team after inheriting Tsunoda’s former mechanics. It all added further hurdles to the learning curve the Kiwi faced in 2025.
Racing Bulls will hope Lawson can now put his learnings into practice in 2026, as the season ahead will feature two triple-headers and six back-to-back race weekends. F1 will round out 2026 with triple-headers in Austin, Mexico and Brazil plus Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
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