Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has reflected on Liam Lawson’s remarkable exit from the team just over a month on. Lawson was demoted to Racing Bulls after just two races.
Lawson crashed out of his debut in Australia after a Q1 exit. In China, he was 19th in Sprint qualifying and last on the grid for the main Grand Prix, precluding any realistic possibility of points.
These were clearly desperate performances, but conventional wisdom held that Red Bull would give Lawson more time. He’d tried to play down expectations on the basis that he hadn’t driven these circuits before.
But Red Bull had already seen enough to be certain that Lawson wasn’t ready. Yuki Tsunoda, snubbed rather brutally only last December, got his chance, and the New Zealander returned to the midfield-dwelling sister team.
Christian Horner realised Liam Lawson was in a ‘spiral’ at Red Bull
Speaking to The Inside Track, Horner was asked whether there was a specific moment when he realised it was ‘time up’ for Lawson. He pointed to Lawson’s demeanour in Shanghai.
The 23-year-old appeared to be in a ‘spiral’, struggling to cope with the pressure of driving for a marquee outfit against a four-time world champion. Multiple team members made the same observation.
Horner painted the decision as compassionate, designed to save Lawson’s career. The team were clear that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent separation.
“Just seeing him… he’d had a very difficult Australian weekend, China, seemed to be in a bit of spiral,” Horner said. “You could see that it was becoming an awful lot for him. Everybody noticed that. It was a question of ‘let’s stop this before it becomes too much’.
“It’s obviously a very difficult decision to make because you’re taking away someone’s dreams and hopes, but as I say, we’ve got that unique situation to say ‘look, this isn’t the end of your Grand Prix career, we’re going to switch you between the two teams to continue to develop and build your experience in Formula 1’.”
How Racing Bulls boss felt when Helmut Marko rang him to impart Liam Lawson news
Lawson started poorly at Racing Bulls, finishing 17th in Japan and 16th in Bahrain after a Q1 exit. There were signs of life in Jeddah, though.
Teammate Isack Hadjar has noticed an improvement from Lawson, who won the qualifying battle. He slipped back in the race after a 10-second penalty, but he can take some sorely-needed confidence from his Saturday display.
Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer says the driver swap was ‘not good news’ at the time. He was enjoying the ‘great harmony in the team’.
Helmut Marko revealed the decision on a phone call, and Bayer had to accept it. The internal view is that Lawson is very unlikely to get a second chance at Red Bull, which naturally endangers his future at the proving ground team.
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