Lawson praised by boss

Liam Lawson has earned praise from Red Bull’s boss after turning his call-up for the Dutch Grand Prix into a seventh-place finish.

The Kiwi was substituted in for Isack Hadjar, who was ruled out with a wrist injury. This gave Lawson a shot with Red Bull’s senior team less than 18 months after he was unceremoniously dumped by them after a two-race stint at the start of 2025.

Lawson started eighth on the gird at Zandvoort after reaching the third qualification session for the first time as a Red Bull driver. He came in around a tenth of a second behind Max Verstappen. 

The New Zealander’s race started with an immediate battle against Verstappen with the pair racing closely through the opening corners before the Dutchman remained ahead.

However, Verstappen’s race ended moments later when he crashed at the final corner leaving Lawson as Red Bull’s only remaining runner after the opening-lap red flag.

From there, Lawson spent much of Sunday’s grand prix running seventh and largely isolated from the leading six, eventually bringing the car home in the same position despite receiving a late penalty for a yellow-flag infringement.

It secured his first points as a Red Bull driver and completed an encouraging return to the team after his previous opportunity ended after just two grands prix.

Lawson expected a difficult afternoon on Sunday after seeing Red Bull struggle to match the front-running teams during Saturday’s sprint.

He says: “It was hard. The first lap was quite fun. But from then we just struggled for pace, to match the front guys at least.

“We really struggled to keep up with the front teams, but I’m sure this stuff I can learn from it. I’ll obviously try to have an understanding after the weekend.”

The Zandvoort opportunity represented another significant chapter in Lawson’s turbulent Red Bull career.

He was promoted to partner Verstappen at the beginning of 2025 but was returned to Racing Bulls after difficult weekends in Australia and China, with Yuki Tsunoda replacing him for the remainder of the season.

Lawson has since rebuilt his standing at Racing Bulls, entering the Dutch weekend ninth in the drivers’ championship and as the highest-placed driver outside the leading four teams.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was impressed by Lawson’s performance given the circumstances and the difficulties the Kiwi experienced during his previous spell with the team.

Mekies says seventh was realistically the maximum available to Lawson given the pace of the teams ahead.

“You know it’s so difficult nowadays to jump from a team to another, so I think Liam did what he could. He obviously did a very good job in qualifying yesterday, being only a tenth away from Max. Today he was a bit on a race on his own.

“We were missing the reference from Max, so no judgement on the pace. But he took the points of the seventh place and that’s probably the best he could have done today.”

Hadjar replaced Tsunoda at Red Bull for 2026 following Lawson’s demotion last season, but Mekies stresses the team is unwilling to take any risks with his recovery.

“We will push very hard to have him back in Monza, which is the target,” says Mekies. “We are not doctors, but we are working. Isaac is very disciplined in making sure we have the maximum chance to have him back in Monza.”

Lawson’s six points at the weekend have moved him back into ninth in the drivers’ championship, five points clear of Pierre Gasly.