Beyond all the mental fortitude that helped Liam Lawson gather himself after the shock of his early-season Red Bull demotion, there is one other detail that proved pivotal in putting him on the path to secure his Formula 1 future this week.
It came at the Austrian Grand Prix in late June when, just one race after Lando Norris had been helped by a similar tweak to his McLaren, Lawson got his hands on a revised front suspension geometry.
Having, like Norris, not been entirely happy with a lack of feel from the front end of his Racing Bulls, the modification that had been developed with Lawson in the team’s simulator proved to be a game-changer.
“Straight away from the first time I drove it, it was just night and day in terms of how much more of a natural feeling for me it was to drive,” said Lawson, speaking exclusively to The Race in a first interview since he secured his 2026 contract with Racing Bulls.
“It was good to then just have a clean weekend. We'd had good sessions, good practice sessions, a couple of maybe good qualis.
“But to just have a clean weekend, to have practice go well, have a really good quali and then deliver in the race as well, it was something that I had not had all year. It just made a big difference.”
The tweak was barely noticeable from the outside, and was not even referenced in the team’s official update submissions for the weekend.
But while minor it helped Lawson take a sixth-place finish that was his best result in F1 up until that point.
It laid the foundations for an upturn in form of improved qualifying and race results over the second half of the season, which proved to be the key to convincing Red Bull bosses to keep him on for 2026.
In what was a bit of a throwback to karting, the Austria tweak had taught Lawson that progress in F1 is not just about getting out there and being quick in what you have.
It’s about working on the details that make you better able to show what you are capable of – and it is something that goes as far as the world championship leader Norris, who put his front suspension tweak in Canada to great use down the line.
Lawson added: “I didn't really know that others had done something similar, or that Lando had done something similar, to be honest, until afterwards.
“I guess the best way to describe it is like when you start racing go-karts. I would basically get a new kart chassis, I'd sit in it, and we would adjust everything.
“You would slightly move the pedals to where you wanted them, maybe slightly offset them. You'd move your heel rest. You'd move your steering wheel, change the angle of that. You'd run different seat angles, different seats. You'd make things that were comfortable.
“Then you get in an F1 car, which is so advanced, and, quite often, you just run what is the standard. And that was the natural thing to do, because I think you just expect that everything's going to be obviously perfect.
“But at the end of the day, it's not perfect for you. And I think that's something that this year I learned a lot more of. That we can actually change a couple of things that might make it more comfortable for me and doesn't necessarily work for most other drivers.”
Not giving up
The story of Lawson’s 2025 season is not just about getting the technical aspects of his Racing Bull car right though, because it is also one of a fightback from adversity.
The 23-year-old New Zealander faced circumstances that may well have broken less resilient drivers early in the campaign.
His harsh axing by Red Bull after just two races left him exposed to the very real danger of being written off and his F1 career fizzling out.
But Lawson refused to let the disappointment of the moment get him down. He kept his chin up – and knew that if he did not deliver the maximum to prove he still had what it took, then all the sacrifices that he and everyone close to him had made on his way to F1 would have been for nothing.
“I mean, honestly, it was a very, very difficult time,” he admitted.
“But I think the importance of this opportunity; knowing the amount of sacrifice from not just me, but from my family and from so many people around me, it was a massive effort to get me this far. At the time, honestly, I felt like I didn’t have a choice.
“And knowing that I was still in the [Racing Bulls] seat, I think that was the biggest thing. Yes, everything got thrown into a bit of a tailspin at the start of the year, but I was still in a car.
“So the fact that I was still in the car meant that I could still show something while I'm driving.
“I think for a long time, I felt like I didn't have that when I was reserve. I felt like I could never show anything because I was reserve. And I was always trying to make a point, by showing my face in meetings with Helmut [Marko] and at the time with Christian [Horner] and stuff like that. It was that kind of thing.
“For me this year, I was still well aware that I was in a seat, and could basically show that by driving the car. So I just tried to not forget that basically, and just keep pressing on.”
A sense of relief
The rollercoaster of Lawson’s season that played out, from what happened with Red Bull to the rapid progress with Racing Bulls as he became a regular points scorer, has flown by.
So much so that it has been hard for him to take stock of all that has happened.
And as it became clear that the fight for the second Racing Bulls seat would be between himself and Yuki Tsunoda, things were getting even more intense rather than less.
It is little wonder that, with the end of the season in sight and a 2026 contract now in the bag, Lawson feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.
“It's a lot of relief right now,” he said. “The year has been crazy. You obviously go into a season, and for me this year, going into my first full season, you sort of go into it with a plan.
“But I think we're well aware that things don't always go to plan - and I definitely didn't expect it to be this kind of year with everything that played out.
“The first part of it just felt like trying to play catch up, to be honest, after the team switch, coming back to VCARB, just trying to sort of find my feet again and understand where things were at with the team.
“I hadn't done any of the pre-season with them, so it was tough at the start.
“But then we found a good balance and I felt quite comfortable. But it's been such a close year that if you're not on top of things 100% all the time, it's so easy to miss a weekend, or have a bad session.
“It's just felt like a battle all year, to be honest. We've had some really good moments, but also some not so good moments. And I think going into next year, it's about trying to eliminate the not so good ones.”
Combative style
Some of those “not so good” moments include Lawson getting involved in incidents where being super robust with his driving has led to car damage that meant good results slipped through his fingers.
On occasion, discretion may have been the better part of valour - like at Turn 1 in Las Vegas, or with Carlos Sainz at Zandvoort, where giving some ground may have meant losing an immediate battle but coming out of it with a better prize at the end.
“It's not every time I've got it right,” he admits. “There have been scenarios this year where either I should have just conceded or have picked up damage where I didn't need to. And I think that's stuff that I'll learn from.
“But it's definitely my style, and it's the way that I felt helped me get to F1 in the first place.
“I've tried not to change too much of it, but there's always things you can learn and there's been a lot of that this year.”
Stability
What puts Lawson in good stead for 2026 is that, for the first time in his career, he is heading into a winter where he is not changing teams and the focus is on hitting the full campaign on the front foot from the start.
“It is very important,” he said about this aspect. “And I think I already actually felt the importance of it last year with Red Bull, because the other two times I jumped in the car it was halfway through the season, or towards the end of the season, and it always felt like a big rush.
“It felt like I was trying to almost play catch-up again. So starting the season with Red Bull this year, I'd actually done all that prep with the team, and felt very well organised in terms of everything that I felt like I needed to do.
“But then obviously there were things which happened. So going into next year, I know that having that time with the team is very important.
“It made me feel a lot more comfortable this year, and I think, honestly, I should feel even more comfortable with this team going into next year as well.”
Lawson will be a year wiser, too. And, as he eyes some weeks off over the winter after a kind of year that he is probably in no hurry to repeat again, there will be time to take on board all that has happened and apply to make himself better in 2026.
“It's always important to reflect on stuff,” he said. “The main thing is to try and learn from things.
“I think that's a big part about everything that played out this year.
“Maybe I was too naive going into the start of the year. I think that's something I'll learn from as well.”
