When Red Bull decided who to hand the poisoned chalice of Formula 1 to in 2025, one factor outweighed all others in choosing Liam Lawson as Max Verstappen’s team-mate. Performance was important, but more important was the strong mindset needed to succeed where his predecessors had failed. Prioritizing is a logical criteria, but given the inherent mindset of a successful racing driver, it can potentially lead to other problems.
Considering that Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon are on the rise again in F1, albeit at a reduced height, while Sergio Perez is licking his wounds ahead of his return in 2026, it is no exaggeration to say that Verstappen is a career killer. However, everyone suffered great damage due to sharing. Kicking with him. Racing history is full of talented drivers who look third-rate when compared directly to the greatest of all time, but Red Bull believes Lawson has what it takes to avoid that fate. More precisely, I hope. The 22-year-old New Zealander has made just 11 Grand Prix starts over two seasons and now appears to have broad enough shoulders to handle the weight of an impossible task.
Questions about an athlete’s mindset are much discussed and widely recognized as an important component of the sport’s makeup, but are poorly defined and tricky to analyze and test outside of the fiery test of competition. Lawson demonstrated his confidence, both in and out of the car, with the arrogance characteristic of many top-level Grand Prix drivers. His resume says little about the title. The 2019 Toyota Racing Series is his brightest championship win in automotive, but it includes wins at all levels. Often he starts off strong, which supports the idea that he never panics when he steps up. However, there are suspicions that his progress is stalling.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko set a clear target for Lawson: “He should be within three-tenths of Max in both qualifying and the race”, giving him the points needed to win the Constructors’ Championship and ” The expectation was, “He should be.” If possible, try to steadily improve his performance as well.” This is largely the same goal that Gasly, Albon and Perez failed to achieve. Because while Perez contributed to the constructors’ title in 2022 and 2023, it was a season in which Red Bull had a significant performance advantage. Closer to ’21 and ’24, he paid for it. Lawson’s challenge is to avoid being the weak link.
Marko also claims that Lawson’s “mental strength tipped the scales.” He and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner may not always be on the same page in the decision-making process, but they are aligned here.
“What really stood out about him was his attitude and ability to handle pressure,” Horner says. “All the rookies seemed like Brazilian rookies. [in the wet]. Liam didn’t drop the car or make any mistakes. He seemed like a seasoned activist. Looking at his performance, his agility also stands out. We had him in a DTM car for a year with Alex Albon. He was very fast. He races hard and has broad shoulders. You need that to sit there.
“Liam has the right personality to deal with the pressure of being part of Max’s team and the expectations are very clear. We don’t expect him to beat Max. Max is a generational talent. The goal is to get as close as possible and score as many points as possible so that there is no gap of 285 points between the two cars.”
Red Bull’s leadership insists they are not ignoring the risks of combining the relatively inexperienced Lawson and Verstappen, but believe the Kiwi’s mentality will help them succeed where others may struggle. Andrew Ferraro/Motorsports Images
This sounds promising and it feels like Lawson could settle comfortably into this role, becoming Eddie Irvine following Verstappen’s Michael Schumacher. When Irvine signed up to be Schumacher’s teammate he knew it would be second place and accepted it very publicly, ending his four-year career at Maranello with four Grand Prix wins and a failure in the ’99 World Championship. I did it. But Irvine is rare. That psychology is more often than not that of the usurper. This is especially true because the “master and apprentice” approach that once dominated Grand Prix racing disappeared decades ago.
Lawson will say all the right things and face this difficult season with his eyes open. Intellectually he would accept the task of being Verstappen’s wingman, but he would be conflicted. Racing drivers who reach at least this level are competitive beasts with complete confidence that they can beat anyone. Their careers are built on the expectation that they will be faster, better, and more successful than every driver they face in their car. Faith can sometimes fade in world-weary activists, but not in people of Lawson’s age. There is no doubt that his mindset will not just be about being a good second-in-command. He will believe in his heart that he can sack Verstappen.
Lawson is a tough competitor and has earned a reputation as a fierce rival in wheel-to-wheel battles in his six appearances in 2024. Although he often ended up crossing paths with Perez, there is no doubt that he knew the importance of fighting the driver he was trying to replace. Rather than being intimidated by this, he stood up for himself and was not afraid to risk irritating the paymaster by showing that this was his time. Marko in particular would have liked this approach.
Verstappen is a completely different proposition to Perez, but Lawson will likely see him as another skittle that will fall apart in the progression of his career. The most effective second drivers are usually those who do not know, or rather do not accept, that this is their destiny in life. Valtteri Bottas exemplified this at Mercedes, determined to push Lewis Hamilton out of the team leader role year after year and repeatedly failing to do so. Ideally, you want a driver who can continue to dust himself off and get back on his feet because he’s giving his best effort and not putting his team-mates on their toes. But this cannot last forever and eventually such resolve erodes.
The effect may be delayed for Lawson, given that Verstappen was courted by rival teams before his departure from Red Bull, allowing him to reminisce about the old days of learning from the star driver. If that happens in 2026, Lawson could be satisfied with being familiar enough this year to be seen as a dependable team leader. But this is a narrow set of circumstances that depend on factors beyond his control.
All empires fall. A great driver appears to be an omnipotent being who will win forever, but one day he suddenly becomes no more. They would survive numerous attacks from their rivals, but would eventually be dismissed for one reason or another. Lawson must believe that he can be an agent of change. This is because it comes with the realm of a strong mindset based on the conviction that you can be better than anyone else.
Objectively, this is a very ambitious task, and there is no reason to believe that Lawson can pull it off. In fact, the evidence of his career points to a good driver rather than a great one. That means he has the ability to have a long and accomplished Grand Prix career, but no career can top Verstappen’s. But the driver’s mindset is not so objective in terms of putting limits on potential, and in many ways it cannot be so objective. If that were the case, would anyone set foot on the road to F1 because the odds of getting there are ridiculously long?
Verstappen’s reign will come to an end at some point. Lawson will provide personal support to speed up that process. Red Bull Content Pool
Let’s say Lawson does better than the 3/10 deficit and somehow starts to push Verstappen. Then he will be motivated to move for the kill. That means all the qualities that helped him get there – his killer instinct, his confidence and his steely mentality – could be problematic for Red Bull. It’s unlikely, but not completely impossible.
As a result, he experiences what almost all drivers eventually experience: the psychological toll of being compared directly to someone who is much better than you. So Red Bull needs Lawson to sort things out. He needs to be close enough to contribute without being a problem, but not confused and discouraged. Verstappen teammates have a habit of getting lost, and when that happens it becomes a wasteland from which it is difficult to find a way out. The downside to a firm mindset is that if you are unstable, you can fall far and fast.
Red Bull have decided that Lawson is the best candidate for the job, or at least among their existing stable. At the risk of repeating the failures of Gasly and Albon, it could be argued that they are making the same mistake by reverting to promoting younger, less experienced drivers. Horner is wise enough to accept that this risk exists, but Lawson again insists otherwise.
“The danger is that it happens again, but Liam is a different character,” says Horner. “He has a different personality that allows him to deal with pressure. He has shown true resilience and strength of character through the opportunities he has been given. And he drives the car in a similar way to Max. He doesn’t shy away from having a very positive front end on his car. So in terms of driving characteristics, it will be easier for the cars to run closer to each other when setting up.”
Horner’s point about driving style is important because too often second places are lost in setup experiments. Driver tolerance defines how a car is developed and operated and, like Schumacher, Verstappen likes his car to point out at turn-in. In theory, the fastest cars will always have instability in turns, but the driver needs a very precise feel and the ability to proactively control the rear.
Verstappen was confused last year when he was limited by understeer. This is because although it is easy to access, it imposes low limits on vehicles. However, it is questionable whether Lawson can pull off that style. He likes to push into turns on entry, so he has a somewhat wonky rear end, but he needs to avoid falling into the trap of trying to achieve this with late braking. Gasly often braked later than Verstappen, suffered from under-turning as a result, and complained of a lack of traction on corner exit as he rode longer corners efficiently.
Lawson will have a lot to learn from Verstappen, not only in terms of speed but also tire management skills. It is unclear how tough of a challenge he will face this season, given that it remains to be seen how competitive Red Bull will be after their problems in 2024. But one thing is certain. Lawson goes into the new season with absolute confidence and certainty that he will never reveal publicly that he can beat Verstappen.
If it weren’t for Lawson, we never would have gotten this far. But for all Red Bull’s trust in him, there is no way to know how he will actually react to what would be a punishing situation for most drivers. His mentality has never been tested like this before and given that he is unlikely to realize his hopes of usurping F1’s top dog, it could bring its own problems and not even Lawson will really know how he will stand up. thereto.
What we know for sure is that before the reality of the fight sets in, he will be quietly confident that he can turn this difficult opportunity into a career. And that fundamental truth means that if he can’t, or more realistically, no one knows when or how he will react.
