Liam Lawson’s Nightmare Has Begun

Let me quickly recap Liam Lawson’s first race weekend as a Red Bull Racing (RBR) driver at Albert Park 2025.

He gets knocked out in Q1. Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, a driver with zero grand prix experiences, outqualified him. Additionally, both Racing Bulls (RB) comfortably demonstrated more pace over a lap in inferior cars. And one of them is a rookie!

After starting the race in P18, he spent almost half of all the laps behind Esteban Ocon, a driver for Haas. For context, the Haas are the slowest on the grid in the 2025 season opener in Melbourne.

As time progressed, he still remained way outside of the points and crashed out in lap 47 to retire with zero points.

In contrast, his teammate, Max Verstappen, qualified in the second row (P3) and brought the car home in P2, less than a second behind Lando Norris, the race winner. For context, the McLarens were the fastest cars in the 2025 Australian GP.

Lawson’s first-ever weekend with RBR reminds me of a certain Mexican driver. 

“You can kill the man, but not the idea, for ideas are bulletproof”, they say.

Jokes apart, we need to take a closer look at the whole situation to determine whether this was an off weekend for the Kiwi or if it marks the beginning of a nightmare that can only be escaped by leaving the Milton-Keynes outfit for a different team or some other motorsports endeavor.

I believe it’s the latter. The rest of this article provides the reasons.

The Red Bull is Hard to Tame

To give Liam the benefit of the doubt, he is not the first, and probably won’t be the last driver to struggle spectacularly in the second Red Bull seat. The biggest reason is the car is simply too hard to drive.

Yes, all Formula 1 cars can be a handful but the RBR machines are a different beast.

Every piece of equipment, including the human body, has an ideal operating window. If you crank up the temperature in your workspace, your productivity will tank. The same goes for the fastest cars in the world that are being driven by a bunch of traumatized kids.

The Red Bull’s operating window is the narrowest. This requires the pilot to adapt their driving style to the car rather than setting the car up to suit their tendencies.

For instance, if a competitor in F1 prefers a low-drag setup, they can get the front and rear wings adjusted to get that effect. 

Of course, no driver can set up the car to remain in their comfort zone entirely. It is definitely a “meet in the middle” situation. The vehicle is tweaked toward the driver’s preferences and the driver modifies their car appropriately to achieve man-machine unison.

However, Red Bull drivers don’t have that freedom. They simply have to suck it up and transform themselves fully to fit into the narrow operating window.

That’s the first reason why the Red Bull is difficult to tame.

The second reason is adapting your driving skills to fit into that narrow operating window is an almost impossible task. I say it’s almost impossible because a certain Dutch driver with four world titles has actually done it.

Basically, in its ideal operating window, the Red Bull cars are too damn sensitive to throttle and steering input. 

You must be millimeter perfect when squeezing the accelerator pedal or risk spinning or crashing out. Likewise with steering.

Alexander Albon, a former Red Bull driver who currently drives for Williams and has outperformed Liam Lawson in the Melbourne GP, explained it perfectly with a gaming analogy.

The Thai driver elaborates that the Red Bull cars when in their narrow but ideal operating window, are like a joystick or computer mouse set to the highest sensitivity. Any input, regardless of how minor it is in magnitude, will massively displace the pointer on the screen.

So, to put it simply, in order to master driving a Red Bull car, you must unlearn your current driving style and learn the Max Verstappen way. Both of them are easier said than done.

Fate of The Second Red Bull Driver

When you get knocked out in Q1, struggle to overtake the slowest car on the grid, stay sufficiently away from the points-scoring positions, and crash out while your teammate is fighting for pole positions and wins, chances are you will be respected less.

The engineers will give fewer damns about your complaints or suggestions related to the car. 

Many other Formula 1 drivers who were in Lawson’s current position were ultimately treated like morons with a learning disability when they recommend something in the garage. The most recent example is Sergio Perez.

Checo repeatedly asked for improvements in his last season in F1 (2024) and all of it fell on deaf ears. The reason? He was getting knocked out in Q1 and struggling to score points when Max Verstappen literally won the world championship.

After the inaugural grand prix of the 2025 Formula 1 season, it is pretty evident that Sid the Sloth from Ice Age is surely going to be a title contender.

If Lawson doesn’t get is crap together, as the season progresses, he will get the same treatment as his predecessors.

What’s funny about all this is that Max agreed with Checo’s suggestions and pressed the engineers to do something about the car’s obvious instability caused by its narrow operating window.

But, DJ Khaled puts it, he was suffering from success. He kept winning and the technical decision-makers in the team chalked it up to Verstappen’s good character by virtue of which he stands by his teammate.

Looking Forward: All Eyes on The Kiwi

If you’ve heard any interview featuring Liam Lawson, you know that the guy is aware of what the team bosses expect from him. Additionally, considering his competitive nature, I am pretty sure he wants to compete for wins and championships, not scrape for a handful of points.

However, at the same time, the tasks that lie in front of him and the environment that he’s currently in are infernal.

Not only he has to erase his driving methodology from his muscle memory, but adopt a new and immensely difficult one in record time (a few practice sessions in the 2025 Chinese GP weekend) in the least forgiving team in recent F1 history.

Will he rise up to the occassion?

The answer is no.

But only time will tell.

Until next time,

Tara