Resilience tested Liam Lawson racing for fourth straight points finish at home

Friday, 26 June 2026

Liam Lawson has said he 'couldn't believe it' when he was sensationally dumped by Red Bull two races into the 2025 season, an ordeal that rattled him and nearly ended his Formula 1 career.

One year later, Lawson has staged a remarkable comeback in 2026, currently sitting 10th in the world driver's standings with 28 points.

While Lawson has scored points in his last three consecutive grand prix starts, his results this season have been heavily aided by crashes and reliability issues among the top teams.

One week can be a long time in Formula 1 and 12 months can feel like two lifetimes. Especially when the going isn’t good.

For Liam Lawson, the evolution of the past 12 months has been glorious.

Seven rounds into the 2025 season, he had been sensationally dumped by Red Bull, was yet to score a point and was seemingly destined for his F1 career to come to a brisk end without getting near a seat for this season.

What a difference a year makes.

The same number of events into this season, he’s tenth in the world driver’s standings, with 28 points and looking the most secure in his seat, since a pair of ninths way back in his 2024 stint at Red Bull’s junior team.

That might be information his Kiwi fans all know already and there will be those who will ask, why dredge it up again? But, it’s easy to forget that while Lawson is leaving his two weekend-long Red Bull stint in the rear view mirror, so much so that he tries to forget it even happened, drivers in his position this time last year almost never survive in the shark tank of the pinnacle of world motorsport.

Lawson opened up about his career almost ending before it really began in a rare podcast appearance this week.

“I even pretended it never even happened, kind of thing, because I spent two races there and the way it all went down was just so crazy that I was honestly just kind of like, ‘I’m just going to pretend I never even went there’, and pretty much everything else I’ve done was with VCARB (Racing Bulls) in Formula 1,” Lawson told the High Performance podcast.

This isn’t about recycling the negative headlines; it's about highlighting his remarkable comeback.

Lawson never saw his shock demotion coming.

“Which is crazy because I remember thinking, there was earlier a couple of rumours around that weekend. There started to be a rumour about, OK, Japanese Grand Prix coming up, Yuki’s Japanese,” he said.

“And I honestly remember trusting my team so much. I was like, ‘That’s insane that they’re even like saying that, classic F1 rumours.’ And then I went back, and just, I was like, I couldn’t believe it,” he told the High Performance podcast.

It wasn’t just going back to learning the Racing Bulls car after being shunted back to the energy drinks manufacturer's junior team, it was dealing with the mental fallout, which he admits rattled him for a period of the 2025 season.

There’s no such hangover in F1 this year for Lawson, who has scored points in his last three grand prix starts.

However, in F1, you are only ever as good as your last result, so Monday morning’s Austrian Grand Prix, considered the home race for both Red Bull teams, is another test in the toughest motorsport category in the land.

As good as the 24-year-old has been in 2026, almost all of his points-paying results have been aided by reliability issues and crashes, often caused by mechanical issues, within the top teams.

As the likes of Mercedes, McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari find more consistency with the new generation cars, scoring regular points will inevitably become tougher for Lawson.

In the last two starts in Barcelona and Monaco, the Alpines have had better race pace than the Racing Bulls and their French driver, Pierre Gasly, has comfortably driven away from Lawson.

For Lawson, finding a way to beat home the Alpines in the mid-pack battle and continue to better his Racing Bulls team-mate Arvid Lindblad in the next stage of the season, leading into the European summer break, looks set to be the biggest requirement to building up his bank of points and remaining in the top 10 in the driver’s standings.

Austria was a happy hunting ground for Lawson in 2025 when he came home sixth in a race won by Lando Norris. At the time, the top five result was a career best for Lawson.