Liam Lawson questions how Red Bull evaluated his performances. Liam Lawson has revealed his frustrations over his time at Red Bull.

Liam Lawson speaks out on the harsh realities of partnering Max Verstappen

Before moving to Racing Bulls to partner Arvid Lindblad, Liam Lawson was famously promoted to the main Red Bull Racing squad alongside Max Verstappen. However, as is so often the case within the Milton Keynes-based team, the second driver ultimately found himself in an incredibly difficult position next to the four-time Dutch world champion. This struggle is rarely down to a lack of raw talent, but rather due to the fact that the machinery is continuously developed and tailored precisely around the driving style and demands of Verstappen.

Liam Lawson himself decided to lift the lid on this challenging environment during a recent appearance on the High Performance Podcast. Reflecting deeply on his time with the senior team, the New Zealander emphasized that his personal experience was not all that different from the technical hardships previously endured by Sergio Perez.

The Kiwi racer highlighted the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix weekend as a prime example of these internal dynamics. In Shanghai, with the car performance falling well short of expectations and failing to satisfy even Max Verstappen, the engineering team asked Lawson to run extreme setup configurations to gather vital data for their development simulation tools.

According to Lawson, however, those experimental test sessions quickly turned into a double-edged sword. Instead of treating the weekend as a collective scientific exercise, the team allegedly used the poor on-track results to justify criticism of his individual performance baseline.

The Shanghai setup gamble that ruined a weekend

“During the Shanghai weekend in 2025, we had talked about trying something pretty high-risk with the car, both to make me feel more comfortable and because, in general, we weren’t happy at all. Max wasn’t happy, and we all thought it was necessary to try something radical,” Lawson explained when detailing the build-up to the event.

“It was a gamble: even if it worked, it would have been difficult to replicate in the race. I was aware of that, but it was presented to me as a useful test for the future. I was starting from the back of the grid, so we decided to go for it. The result? A disaster: the car was incredibly difficult to drive, it completely destroyed the tires, and it totally compromised our race.”

Weaponized data and the narrative surrounding the Racing Bulls return

The most frustrating turning point for the young driver arrived during the post-race debriefs and subsequent performance reviews. “That performance was used against me. And that, regardless of everything, is something I do not accept. You cannot judge a driver in that manner. It’s a team sport, we work together,” Lawson stated bluntly, expressing his disappointment with how management handled the data.

The New Zealander concluded his thoughts by firmly rejecting the media narrative that was constructed by the paddock hierarchy surrounding his eventual demotion back to the junior Racing Bulls squad. “Everything was spun as if I was going through a difficult time mentally and that the return was to protect me. But the reality is completely different.”

In summary, Liam Lawson’s candid reflections reveal the intense pressure and technical hurdles second drivers face at Red Bull Racing alongside Max Verstappen. By exposing how a high-risk setup trial at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix backfired into internal criticism, the New Zealander sheds light on the complex political and engineering dynamics that shaped his transition back to Racing Bulls.