(Motorsport-Total.com) – Dear readers,
Liam Lawson’s third race for Red Bull Racing was exactly what Red Bull Racing had hoped for from Liam Lawson. A solid qualifying, right behind Max Verstappen. No major mistakes and a strong pace in the race. Points. Finally, he had proven that he deserved this seat.
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The problem is: His third race for Red Bull Racing did not take place in April 2025 in Suzuka, but about 17 months later in Zandvoort.
So how should one classify Lawson’s weekend? And what does it actually prove?
That Liam Lawson is a capable Grand Prix driver? No, not that. That would be too obvious anyway. One or two races cannot change this assessment. Everything he has shown throughout his career is enough for that.
It also does not prove that he is destined to become world champion someday. After all, a weekend is just a weekend. A much larger sample size would be needed for that.
Not even as evidence for the claim that Lawson could have turned his 2025 season around if he had been given the chance to continue driving the RB21. Because after this weekend, it still seems just as likely as before that his season would have turned into a never-ending nightmare regardless – due to the circumstances he was facing at the time.
What Lawson failed at in 2025
Lawson was promoted to Red Bull after just eleven Formula 1 races, spread over two short stints within two years, and put into a car that had been consistently designed and developed around Verstappen for years.
What Zandvoort probably proves: The RB21 suited Lawson’s driving style about as well as Esteban Ocon’s racing suit would fit Yuki Tsunoda – or maybe even the other way around.
With practically no experience and under enormous pressure from superiors who apparently chose Lawson mainly because they had even less confidence in Tsunoda at the time, his failure was almost preordained. And there is no sugarcoating it: He failed spectacularly.
However, this happened on tracks where he had never previously competed in a Formula 1 race, after difficult winter tests and under relentless media scrutiny, which Red Bull itself additionally fueled.
After being eliminated three times in Q1 – including twice as the last in the sprint weekend in China – and inevitably standing without a single point, he was shown the door. In Melbourne, there was also an accident on a wet track, and to be fair, Lawson was by no means the only one to throw away his car that day. However, his lack of pace was alarming.
And now?
Under conditions that at first glance were even worse – a call on Monday, a simulator session immediately before leaving for the Netherlands, and only one free practice to get used to a completely new car – Lawson delivered an almost perfect weekend.
He can be blamed for missing entry into SQ3 in the sprint qualifying on Friday evening. But probably not even Helmut Marko would have done that. In the actual qualifying, Lawson was just 0.115 seconds behind Verstappen, and in the race, he was the only Red Bull driver to score points in the end. Much more than his seventh place probably wasn’t possible for the team that weekend anyway.
Contradiction between Verstappen and Stella
One can explain it as Max Verstappen did when asked about Lawson’s qualifying performance. The Dutchman’s theory fits well with his narrative this year: Formula 1 in 2026 is so messed up that even the best drivers can no longer make the same difference.
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Andrea Stella, who was confronted with this theory a few hours later, diplomatically disagreed. The technology this year is so complex that tiny differences can indeed lead to larger gaps.
But maybe in the end, both are right.
In the RB21 that Lawson was given at the start of the 2025 season, Verstappen could indeed make a huge difference – and it hardly mattered who was in the second car. Sergio Perez was not really much better in the RB20 at the end of 2024 either. Tsunoda later as well.
So what did Lawson’s Zandvoort weekend really prove? That Lawson can do just as good a job as Isack Hadjar? No. We already saw that last year.
Did Red Bull write off Lawson too quickly?
Maybe it proves that the same driver with significantly more Formula 1 experience can handle such a challenge better? Well. That should have been clear to anyone – except maybe Helmut Marko and Christian Horner.
Maybe the only real insight is that Red Bull’s hectic driver decisions a year and a half ago were indeed as crazy as they seemed back then. And that it wasn’t Lawson who failed – but those who made those decisions.
When Helmut Marko explained the decision in March 2025, he emphasized that Red Bull was not simply demoting Lawson back to the junior team. On the contrary: They were saving his career. Only, Lawson’s career might not have needed saving if he had not been put in a position in the first place where there was almost nothing to gain from the start.
The bitter thing for Lawson about the whole story is that his performance in Zandvoort will probably hardly change his future prospects. Yes, his cockpit for 2027 is not yet confirmed. But he already did solid enough work at Racing Bulls to have a realistic chance for another year.
Does this weekend put him back in the race for the “big” Red Bull cockpit? Now that Marko is no longer there, one would hardly expect Hadjar to suddenly be kicked out without any apparent reason.
Of course, this story inevitably includes the question: What if?
If Red Bull had acted logically in the winter before the 2025 season, the poisoned RB21 would probably have been Tsunoda’s problem from the start. Lawson would have gotten another year with the team from Faenza and possibly could have started alongside Verstappen in 2026 – in a much more forgiving car, with significantly more experience. And without the stigma of having “failed” at Red Bull.
For Lawson himself, this weekend was probably enormously important nonetheless. Not because he had to prove something to himself. He probably already knew that he is a capable Grand Prix driver. He says he knew that with more time in 2025 he would have eventually shown better performances. And no one knows better than he does that the task he was given for these two races was almost impossible.
Others may have thought differently. Zandvoort 2026 now makes them look pretty foolish.
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Oleg Karpow