Lawson relishing stability after 2025 rollercoaster

Liam Lawson says he is in “a much better place” at the start of 2026 compared to the uncertainty surrounding his future in Formula 1 a year ago.

Red Bull promoted Lawson instead of the more experienced Yuki Tsunoda in place of Sergio Perez for the 2025 season, but then opted to reverse that decision after just two races. With Tsunoda taking over the Red Bull seat and Lawson returning to Racing Bulls, he admits he is benefiting from the continuity of a full pre-season and more stable place with Racing Bulls this year.

“[I feel] pretty different to this time last year,” Lawson said. “Last year I was fighting for a race seat and obviously it was a very difficult point of the very start of my Formula 1 career. So I think obviously stability-wise things are in a much better place at the moment, and I think everybody around me is a lot happier as well.

“So it's been a good start to the year. Obviously a long season ahead and I think the biggest challenge is getting our heads around these new cars, the progression, the development of everything. Which is pretty exciting for us, as much as the cars are quite tricky at the moment and there's a lot there, but I think for us there is a lot more opportunity.

“Especially at this point of the year when I think reliability is a big question mark as well. In the first couple races there has been just a lot happening, we've managed to capitalize on that stuff and and we just want to try and keep doing that through the next few races.”

Despite scoring points in each of the last two races to sit 10th in the drivers’ championship – just two points behind Max Verstappen – Lawson admits the new regulations have been challenging to get on top of. While he says the drivers will never be universally happy with any ruleset, the New Zealander believes the safety aspect should be a priority for F1 to focus on ahead of Miami, due to the potential for significant closing speeds.

“Honestly, I really don't know. At the end of the day there's always going to be things that we want from the car and we're going to probably – I mean as racing drivers, we complain about everything, literally, so I think that'll never change!" he said. “But on the regulation side, I think the biggest thing right now is probably the safety aspect of it, especially with what we saw in Japan, and I think that's something that we want to avoid obviously in the future going forwards.

“On the performance side, that’s something that obviously will always evolve. If you look at any other regulation, the start of it, there’s been a huge development over the five-year process that the regulations have been out.

“So I'm sure these will obviously evolve and get faster and I'm sure we'll find ways to make the cars nicer to drive – or I hope that we do. Because at the moment, especially in qualifying for us, we're trying to put the car on the limit and extract everything out of it and in ways at the moment it feels like we're not able to do that. That's probably the first focus for us that we would like out of the cars, but really that safety side probably comes first more than anything.”