Liam Lawson has set himself the “job” he has to do returning Red Bull to Formula 1 Constructors’ title glory alongside Max Verstappen.
Lawson, with just 11 Grand Prix starts under his belt has been drafted into the senior Red Bull squad after Sergio Perez’s 2024 campaign was a cascading tale of disappointment.
While Verstappen clinched a fourth successive Drivers’ title, Perez scored 285 fewer points to wind up eighth in the standings, a large contributor to Red Bull slipping to third in the Constructors’ Championship amid the well-documented balance issues with the RB20 machine.
It’s now up to the relatively inexperienced Lawson to help elevate Red Bull back to being the top dog and the New Zealander acknowledged that as his task when speaking to select media including Motorsport Week ahead of the F1 75 launch event.
“The team’s goal is to win the Constructors and obviously they weren’t able to do that last year and that’s the clear goal going into this year,” Lawson said.
“So obviously we’re doing the best job we can to make the car as fast as possible and for me if we’re in a position that we’re fighting for winning the Constructors then I’m doing my job.
“So I think that’s really where the team’s goal for me and their expectation for me is at, outside of obviously my goals for Formula One.”
How Lawson will ‘take advantage’ of being Max Verstappen’s team-mate
Amid the task of elevating Red Bull back to Constructors’ title glory, Lawson has to contend with being Verstappen’s team-mate, considered the toughest gig in F1.
The likes of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon were similarly thrust into the second Red Bull seat early in their F1 careers and failed to handle the intense pressure of having Verstappen on the other side of the garage.
Lawson, however, is seeing being Verstappen’s team-mate as an opportunity to be seized.
“It’s obviously going to be a process to get up to speed and for me it’s about doing that as quickly as possible and there’s no real expectation or time frame on when I think I’m going to do that,” Lawson said of embarking on his first campaign with Red Bull.
“It’s just about working towards doing that as quickly as possible and obviously having Max as a team-mate is very valuable from a learning perspective for me getting to learn off everything he’s doing.
“There’s really nobody better to do that.
“It’s more about making the most and taking advantage of that rather than thinking about it in a way that’s going to obviously put extra pressure on me.”
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