After months of speculation and ‘will-they-won’t-they’ uncertainty, Red Bull has ripped the band-aid off and made a huge change for F1 2025. After four years of keeping the faith with Sergio Perez through his up-and-down form, Red Bull will start afresh with Liam Lawson as Max Verstappen’s teammate – and the question on everyone’s mind is whether it’s too much, too soon, for the young Kiwi. Lawson’s rise hasn’t been meteoric through the junior ranks – he first signed on with the Red Bull junior programme in 2018.
But, in the years since, Lawson has been a fast learner and has been competitive at everything he’s jumped behind the wheel of – whether that be winning the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand, finishing fifth in his second season of Formula 3, or third in his second season of Formula 2. Finishing second overall in the 2021 DTM championship and the 2023 Super Formula Championship, Lawson finally did enough to get a chance in F1 when Daniel Ricciardo injured himself in a crash at the Dutch Grand Prix – a fateful moment that resulted in Ricciardo eventually losing his seat outright to the Red Bull reserve. With only 11 races completed, Lawson won out in the head-to-head between himself and Yuki Tsunoda for the Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen.
He beats, by one race, Alex Albon’s ascendancy into a Red Bull seat, with the British-Thai driver having completed 12 races at the time he got the nod to replace the struggling Pierre Gasly. Albo.
