Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies would be lying if he said Liam Lawson “was happy about the news” of his Red Bull exit.

However, back with the junior team as of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, Lawson has a “point to prove” and an “important role” to play, so if they can bring the New Zealander back to “high confidence”, Racing Bulls believe he will be back in business.

Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls: Confidence key to recovery?

Lawson will continue his F1 career with Racing Bulls after Red Bull made the tough decision to demote him after just two races with the senior team, Lawson failing to escape Q1 or score points in Australia or China.

Yuki Tsunoda meanwhile moved the other way as he gets his Red Bull career underway in front of his home fans at Suzuka.

For Lawson, those two race weekends in the Red Bull RB21 represented a bruising experience, as Racing Bulls now put their plan to bring him back to form into motion.

“I’m not going to tell you that he was happy about the news last week, because certainly it was difficult to digest,” Mekies said of Lawson.

“But honestly, the next day, he was with us in Faenza doing the the seat fit, the day after, he was back in the sim, and then here we are, we are in Japan.

“So he’s in good spirits. He knows he has an important role to play with us in the battle we have in the midfield. He knows he has a point to prove out there.

“So, we are all very conscious that his talent is there and it’s about finding the right conditions to extract it back out of him.”

Asked if the extent of Lawson’s struggles at Red Bull surprised him, Mekies added: “I think we were all surprised, of course.

“I think nobody was expecting that he would be back of the grid for these two races. It was certainly a very tricky set of circumstances, but to tell you that any of us would have anticipated that, would be a lie.

“So that being said, with high confidence, we think that his talent did not disappear and we start back where we left it last year.”

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Red Bull went with the inexperienced option in Lawson when they looked in house for an F1 2025 replacement for Sergio Perez, deciding against calling-up Tsunoda at the time from their junior team despite his four seasons of F1 experience.

Now, Tsunoda does get the opportunity to prove himself in the senior team, as Lawson returns to Racing Bulls to partner impressive rookie Isack Hadjar.

And Mekies was asked how much of an influence Racing Bulls has when it comes to influencing Red Bull driver decisions.

“So it’s an interesting one,” he said. “As a team, as Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, our first objective is competitiveness. Our second objective is to grow some young talents for the Red Bull family.

“So our job is to get to the end of the year, or sooner, in some cases, and to put on the table, one or two drivers, which hopefully are of interest for our big brother.

“And to answer your question, in the case of last season, we felt that was the case with both drivers, and that’s what we presented to Christian [Horner, Red Bull team principal], to Helmut [Marko, Red Bull senior advisor and driver programme boss] and to the wider Red Bull family, two drivers that are, according to us, able to step up into the bigger team.

“And then, of course, the rest of the decision is completely up to them.”

After visits to Albert Park and Shanghai – both tracks unfamiliar to Lawson – he makes his return to Racing Bulls at a venue he knows well in Suzuka, having raced there for the team in 2023, as well as competing there in Super Formula.

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