Richard Wood is to act as Liam Lawson’s race engineer at Red Bull for the F1 2025 season, it has been claimed.

Lawson is gearing up for his first full season in F1, having been signed as Max Verstappen’s new team-mate at the end of last year.

Richard Wood set to become Liam Lawson’s race engineer at Red Bull

The New Zealander has replaced Sergio Perez, who vacated his Red Bull seat after a bruising F1 2024 campaign saw the team slip to a distant third in the Constructors’ Championship.

Hugh Bird served as Perez’s race engineer across the Mexican’s four-year stint with Red Bull, with performance engineer Wood stepping in at last season’s Dutch Grand Prix as Bird went on paternity leave.

A report by Dutch publication De Telegraaf has claimed that Wood will become Lawson’s race engineer on a full-time basis for F1 2025.

PlanetF1.com has approached Red Bull for comment.

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PlanetF1.com revealed on Wednesday that the new Red Bull RB21 car will make its on track debut in Bahrain, 24 hours before the start of F1’s official three-day pre-season test at Sakhir.

Red Bull have traditionally held a brief shakedown at Silverstone, the home of F1’s British Grand Prix, ahead of formal pre-season running.

However, the unique pre-season schedule for the F1 2025 season, which will see the sport stage its first-ever collective season-launch event attended by all 10 teams in London, will see the new Red Bull take to the track for the first time in Bahrain instead.

Lawson, who replaced Daniel Ricciardo at the VCARB junior team in the aftermath of last September’s Singapore Grand Prix, has been signed to a Red Bull seat despite making just 11 F1 appearances to date.

The 22-year-old’s rapid rise has sparked fears that Lawson could follow in the footsteps of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, who were dropped by Red Bull after bruising spells alongside Verstappen.

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com at the end of last year, however, Lawson insisted that he has no fears about taking on a driver of Verstappen’s calibre.

He said: “I don’t know what they [Gasly and Albon] felt when they were there.

“You can always look at it as an outsider and think: ‘This is what it looks like they felt.’ But I don’t know what it was like for them.

“I believe, for anybody to go up against Max, you have to be realistic and know that he’s the fastest guy on the grid right now and that you’re not going to be outqualifying the guy by half a second.

“It’s not going to be something that’s really going to be happening. For me, it’s more the opportunity that’s there to learn from the best.

“For me as a driver, to be able to go in against the guy who’s won four world championships and is well seasoned… he’s been in that car for a long time.

“That car is almost… not developed around him, but he’s been a massive part of developing that car and understands it very well.

“In terms of how to drive it, it’s all right there on paper.

“When you see all the data that he brings in, for me as a driver to be alongside that, to be able to learn from him and have all that access, I think that’s what’s exciting for me about the opportunity.”

Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, recently confirmed that Lawson will be expected to hold a support role to Verstappen, describing the reigning four-time World Champion as “the most valuable asset” in F1.

Asked if Lawson has been signed to “complement” Verstappen, Horner told talkSPORT: “Absolutely.

“If you liken it to football, you can’t have two [elite] centre forwards – you’ve got to have strength and depth in your team.

“I think that Liam, with the experience that he has coming into the team, is there to provide that strength in depth in what we need from an engineering perspective, from a tactical perspective, because it’s going to be tight [in 2025].

“You’ve got Ferrari that’ll have [Lewis] Hamilton and [Charles] Leclerc two very strong drivers; you’ve got [Lando] Norris and Oscar Piastri at McLaren.

“There’s contradicting aspects [within F1] because, on the one hand, you’ve got the team and the drivers are contractors to the team.

“On the other side, you’ve got the Drivers’ Championship where the interest and the individual interest is. It’s about communication and being up front with the drivers.

“We’re perhaps slightly different to other teams where we go: ‘Do you know what? Max Verstappen is the most valuable asset in Formula 1. He’s our lead driver. If you can get close to him, fantastic. But the reality is the expectation is for Max to win.’

“A team like Ferrari, for example, are going to have two drivers that are going to be taking points off each other – and which horse do you back?

“You have to back both of them, but that sometimes becomes divisive within a team.

“Different teams have different approaches.”

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