Liam Lawson’s confidence appears to have bounced back after his Red Bull demotion, having arrived at the Racing Bulls squad ‘a bit sad’.

The Kiwi driver was dropped back into the Racing Bulls driver line-up after the Chinese Grand Prix, following two race weekends in which the team’s new driver failed to trouble the top 10. With confidence spiralling, Red Bull opted to swap Lawson with the far more experienced Yuki Tsunoda to allow their young charge to rebuild his confidence in the sister team.

Liam Lawson ‘fastest we’ve been’ verdict as ‘he’s definitely getting stronger’

Much of Lawson’s problems came from being unable to drive the Red Bull RB21 in its very narrow operating window, with his confidence taking a beating as a consequence.

This wasn’t helped by his teammate, four-time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen, having almost 10 years of experience with Red Bull’s car designs and being able to exploit its potential to its maximum from session to session.

Identifying that Lawson was struggling mentally, Red Bull’s senior management reached a unanimous agreement to drop Lawson – a driver with just half a season’s experience in total – back to Racing Bulls alongside rookie driver Isack Hadjar, while Tsunoda, after four years, has taken Lawson’s vacated RB21 to some moderate initial success.

Having not tested or driven the Racing Bulls car until he took Tsunoda’s over at the Japanese Grand Prix, Lawson has had to readjust to a very different car – one that’s a little more compliant and easier to drive with a wider operating window, even if its outright potential isn’t quite that of the Red Bull.

Unsurprisingly, Hadjar has had the upper hand somewhat during Lawson’s first two weekends at Racing Bulls, but Saudi Arabia showed the Kiwi appears to have got his head around the car as he outqualified Hadjar on Saturday.

Lawson finished just behind Hadjar but was given a 10-second time penalty for leaving the track during a battle with Alpine’s Jack Doohan.

Speaking afterward, Lawson was visibly happier about how things are progressing for him, despite the race outcome, and said he felt it was “definitely the fastest we’ve been” as he spoke to media, including PlanetF1.com.

Hadjar, having been able to keep a watching brief on Lawson’s progress relative to the teammate he started off with, Tsunoda, said it’s clear Lawson has now reached a similar level.

“Honestly, this weekend, he was really, really fast,” he said.

“In qualifying, he made the most of the car and he’s definitely getting stronger now, and definitely pushing me just like Yuki was pushing me.”

With Lawson returning to Racing Bulls just a few short months after leaving the team to join Red Bull, CEO Peter Bayer was asked whether he thinks Lawson has returned as the same driver he was, or whether the Kiwi still needs to find more confidence.

“Confidence? No. Honestly, I think it took a moment for him to digest,” Bayer said of Lawson’s experience.

“First time I saw him when he came to Italy, he looked a bit sad. Honestly, that’s how I perceived him.

“He was a bit puzzled with everything that happened very quickly. But also, at the same time, he knew the people, the tools, the set-up.

“And I really felt that very quickly he was returning to being the old Liam. He’s a great racer, somebody that has great humour, and that’s what we see now again.”

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