Red Bull boss Christian Horner has identified a positive from Liam Lawson’s incident-ridden debut with the team at the 2025 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.
Lawson had a baptism of fire with Red Bull at the Albert Park Circuit last weekend.
A technical issue cost the New Zealander his entire FP3 session and the ill preparation made way for a startling Q1 exit in qualifying.
His difficult acclimation to the RB21 was compounded in mixed conditions on race day, whereby Lawson failed to make forward progress until a late burst of rain presented an opportunity.
Opting to stay out on slicks when the Lap 44 shower came, Lawson found himself in the Turn 2 wall three laps later.
Far from the result Lawson or Red Bull would have wanted, Horner was able to look on the bright side, pulling a positive scrap of data from the dry phase of the GP.
“It was a difficult weekend for him,” Horner acknowledged in a conversation with select media including Motorsport Week.
“We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at.
“We took the risk of leaving him out long because he was outside the points.
“We thought, roll the dice, maybe it will come right. But at exactly the point that it started to rain more [he crashed]. It’s difficult to blame him for that last spin, Horner assessed, explaining the cause behind Lawson’s accident.
“I think the one flash of light that he can take out of it, is that on the dry tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the Grand Prix, he did a 22.9 versus Max’s 23.0, Lando 22.1.
“So I think if there was one positive we can take [is] that his pace actually on the dry was not too bad.”
Horner: Lawson is ‘resilient’
Horner also told of the impact missing FP3 had on Lawson, citing mistakes in his qualifying performance, that with better preparation would likely have been avoided.
“I think the problem is having missed FP3, on the back foot, and then the pressure builds,” he said.
“He grabbed the brake on the second set of tyres and then the third set of tyres, he was half a second up, and then another mistake there.”
With a Sprint weekend looming in China, at a circuit Lawson doesn’t know, Horner predicts another difficult weekend for the New Zealander but hailed his resilience.
“I think next weekend will be tough because it’s a Sprint race and a track that he’s not been to before, but he’s pretty resilient,” Horner said.
“This weekend wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”
Lawson admits to struggles
Speaking post-race, Lawson was well aware of the difficulties he had to contend with in Australia.
With regards to the late tyre gamble, he said “We took a chance, hoping that at least half of the track would stay dry.
“We knew that sector three was bad, but we thought that sector one would stay a bit drier, so we carried on. Unfortunately, it was bucketing down with rain.
“At that point, to be honest, I’d backed out of pushing because it was so wet. I was just trying to stay on the track. But obviously, it’s not ideal.”
Lawson added “Yeah, we were really struggling to be honest. I had a lot of tyre issues with the front early on in the race, so it’s just been a tough weekend.”
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