Who slept best last night: Liam Lawson

Liam Lawson’s third race at Red Bull was exactly what Red Bull would have wanted from Liam Lawson. Solid qualifying, right behind Max Verstappen. No big mistakes and strong pace in the race. Points. He finally proved he deserved to be in that seat…

It’s just that his third race at Red Bull wasn’t Suzuka in April 2025, but Zandvoort some 17 months later.

So, how should we interpret Lawson’s weekend? And what does it actually prove?

That Lawson is a capable grand prix driver? No, not that. That’s too obvious anyway. One or two races can’t change that perception. Everything he’s done during his career is enough.

It doesn’t prove he’s destined to win the world championship either. One weekend is one weekend, after all. You’d need a much broader sample.

It can’t even be used as evidence to back the claim that he could have turned his 2025 campaign around had he been given the chance to keep driving the RB21. Because it still looks as likely as it did before this weekend that his season would have turned into a continuous nightmare, no matter what – because of the circumstances he was dealing with.

Lawson was promoted to Red Bull with just 11 F1 races under his belt, spread across two short stints over two years, and thrown into a car that had been built and developed completely around Verstappen over the years.

Lawson qualified right behind Verstappen and even battled with the Dutchman on lap one

What Zandvoort probably proves is that the RB21 did indeed suit his driving style about as well as Esteban Ocon’s overalls would fit Yuki Tsunoda – or perhaps even the other way around.

With almost no experience and put under enormous pressure by bosses who seemingly only chose Lawson back then because they believed in Tsunoda even less, he was almost destined to fail – and, there’s no denying it, he did so spectacularly. But it also happened at tracks he had never raced at in F1, following a difficult pre-season test, while being exposed to relentless media scrutiny fuelled by Red Bull itself.

He was shown the door after failing to escape Q1 three times – and inevitably scoring zero points. There was also an accident in Melbourne on a damp track, but he wasn’t the only one crashing out that day, to be fair. The lack of pace, though, was just staggering.

Now, in what on the face of it were even worse circumstances – with a call on Monday, a simulator session right before his departure to the Netherlands and only one free practice session to adapt to a completely new machine – Lawson’s weekend was near-perfect. You can pin the blame on him for not progressing into SQ3 on Friday evening in sprint qualifying, but even Helmut Marko probably wouldn’t. Lawson’s gap to Verstappen in main qualifying was a tiny 0.115s, and in the race he ultimately was the only Red Bull driver to score points – and it didn’t look like there was a lot more on the table for the team this weekend than his eventual P7.

You can explain it the way Verstappen did when he was asked about Lawson’s qualifying performance. The Dutchman’s theory suits his narrative this year: F1 2026 is so flawed that the best drivers can’t make as much of a difference. Andrea Stella, who was presented with that theory a few hours later, tactfully disagreed, noting that the technology is so complex this year that tiny differences can actually result in bigger gaps. But it may well be that both are actually right. In the RB21 Lawson was handed at the start of 2025, Verstappen indeed could make a huge difference – and it didn’t really matter who was driving the second car. Sergio Perez at the end of 2024 wasn’t really a lot better at the wheel of the RB20. Neither was Tsunoda later.

Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

So, what did Lawson’s Zandvoort weekend really prove? That Lawson can do as good a job as Isack Hadjar? No, we saw that last year. Maybe it proves that the same driver with considerably more Formula 1 experience can deal with such a challenge better? Well, that was probably fairly obvious to everyone apart from Helmut Marko and Christian Horner anyway.

Maybe the only real takeaway is that Red Bull’s hectic driver decisions a year and a half ago were indeed as insane as they looked back then. And that it wasn’t Lawson who failed – it was those making the calls.

In March 2025, explaining the decision, Helmut Marko pointed out that Red Bull wasn’t simply demoting Lawson back to the junior team – it was saving his career instead. Yet his career perhaps wouldn’t have needed any saving had he not been put in a position from which he had almost nothing to gain in the first place.

What’s bitter for Lawson in all of this is that his Zandvoort performance probably isn’t going to do much for his future prospects. No, his 2027 seat isn’t confirmed yet – but he was already doing a solid enough job with Racing Bulls to have a fair chance of earning another year. Will this weekend put him back in contention for the “big” Red Bull seat? Well, with Marko not around anymore, you wouldn’t really expect Hadjar to get axed for no apparent reason.

There’s an inevitable ‘what could have been’ part of the story as well. Had Red Bull acted logically in the winter leading up to the 2025 season, the poisoned RB21 would probably have been Tsunoda’s to take from the start. Lawson would have got another year with the Faenza squad and potentially could have started 2026 next to Verstappen – in a much friendlier car, with a lot more experience. And without the stigma of having ‘failed’ at Red Bull.
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Yet, no doubt, this weekend was very important for Lawson himself. Not because he proved something to himself. He probably knew he was a capable grand prix driver. He says he knew he’d eventually have done better had he been given more time in 2025. He is aware, more than anyone, that he faced an almost impossible task in the two races he was given.

Others might have had different opinions.

Zandvoort 2026 just makes them look silly.

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