Top Formula 1 teams often avoid giving number one status to one of their drivers in public these days, but Red Bull have made it clear Liam Lawson is not to try challenging Max Verstappen
Top Formula 1 teams often avoid giving number one status to one of their drivers in public these days, but Red Bull have made it clear Liam Lawson is not to try challenging Max Verstappen Top Formula 1 teams often avoid giving number one status to one of their drivers in public these days, but Red Bull have made it clear Liam Lawson is not to try challenging Max Verstappen
Liam Lawson has been ordered not to try to beat Max Verstappen by Red Bull.
The Kiwi has been promoted from their junior squad to partner Verstappen in 2025. The hope is he will be able to perform more consistently than Sergio Perez, who was relieved of his place after four seasons following a dismal final campaign in which his poor results cost the team in its bid for the constructors’ championship.
Long-serving team adviser Helmut Marko has said many times that he felt Perez’s main problem was that he tried too hard to match of beat what Verstappen could do. And the Austrian feels Lawson will benefit from avoiding falling into the same trap.
He said of Lawson: “He should be able to stay within three tenths of Max both in qualifying and in the races. That should be enough to accumulate points for the constructors’ championship.
“Gradually he will have to improve as much as possible, but always keeping in mind that he is driving alongside the best F1 driver at the moment. In doing so, he should not get involved in the technical side of things, such as set-ups and strategies, for example, something other team-mates have done in the past.
“Liam will have to accept that Verstappen is the best. We will see how close he can get, but he should not get in the car with the aim of beating Verstappen. That has gone wrong with all his team-mates.”
Lawson was promoted to the top Red Bull team despite having just 11 Formula 1 race starts to his name. In contrast, how now former team-mate at sister squad RB, Yuki Tsunoda, has been racing in the sport for four years – but was again overlooked.
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Marko has admitted that Tsunoda has shown he has more pace on track than Lawson. However, that was not enough to convince Red Bull bosses to promote the Japanese racer who they feel would have struggled with the demands of going up against Verstappen in the same team.
He added: “Yuki is certainly the faster of the two in terms of speed, at the moment. But he doesn’t have the necessary consistency and keeps making mistakes. Then there are his outbursts of anger, which have improved significantly, but they remain a factor. Then he loses control.
“We believe that it would lead to great difficulties emotionally if Tsunoda realised, next to Max, that he couldn’t beat him. He possibly couldn’t even get close and what if things weren’t going as he had imagined?”
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Mirror – Sport