New Zealander Liam Lawson will “definitely” be on the 2025 grid, according to Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko, heaping pressure on Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Pérez to save their careers. Lawson has long been rumoured to have a clause in his contract that would allow him to do a deal with another team were Red Bull not to offer him a full-time contract by September. The future Audi team, currently competing as Sauber, was rumoured to be a possible destination, with the squad’s former management said to have taken an interest in the talented Kiwi.
But Marko, who has long presided over Red Bull’s junior driver program, quashed speculation that Lawson would be allowed to slip through the net. “Next year he will definitely be driving one of our cars,” ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix. The declaration has come earlier than expected, with Marko having suggested to ESPN earlier this month that .
Marko notably left ambiguous which Red Bull team Lawson would race for, turning the screws on both Pérez at Red Bull Racing and Ricciardo at RB ahead of a critical four-round swing that could end the career of one of the two veterans. Noise surrounding Pérez’s future in Formula 1 has been building for months, with the Mexican’s dire form and paltry points haul described as “unsustainable” by team principal Christian Horner. On his current scoring trajectory .
The team resolved during the mid-season break to retain Pérez for at least another four.