Liam Lawson: Racing Bulls Driver, Red Bull Stand-In and the Mexico City Clash
Liam Lawson is in the news again, and not for a good result. A Friday practice crash with Max Verstappen in Mexico City got him a grid penalty, and now a lot of fans are asking if he will still have an F1 seat next year. His name has been climbing Google Trends in South Africa. We went through the reports and pulled together answers to the questions people keep asking.
Quick facts
- Full name: Liam Lawson
- Born: 11 February 2002, Hastings, New Zealand
- Raised: Pukekohe, south of Auckland
- Team: Racing Bulls (Formula 1)
- F1 debut: 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, in place of the injured Daniel Ricciardo
- Red Bull starts: two in early 2025, three more in 2026 while Isack Hadjar was hurt
- Big junior title: Toyota Racing Series, 2019
- Standing on 31 October 2026: ninth in the drivers’ championship, per Sky Sports
What actually happened in Mexico on Friday?
It was late in second practice at the Autódromo Hermanos RodrÃguez. Verstappen went for the inside at Turn 12. Lawson didn’t back out. By Turn 14 the two cars had hit each other, a bit of Verstappen’s Red Bull was lying on the track, and the session got stopped with a red flag.
That’s it. It was practice. Nobody lost a race. But the car Lawson hit belongs to the senior Red Bull team, and the driver in it is a four-time world champion. So people paid attention.
Why did Lawson get a grid penalty in Mexico?
The stewards looked at it on Saturday morning and gave both drivers a one-place grid drop. They called the driving “unacceptable”. They also said team managers had been warned that same day about overtaking in that part of the lap during practice.
Sky Sports reported that both men told the stewards their moves were “unnecessary and clumsy”. Owning up like that probably helped keep it to one place. Whatever spot Lawson qualifies in on Saturday night, he starts one spot lower on Sunday. Same for Verstappen.
What did Verstappen and the team say?
Verstappen was not happy. “If I would be him, I would act a little bit smarter,” he said. He also said it didn’t make much sense to pick fights like that when “you are fighting for your seat”.
That line is the one fans keep sharing.
Lawson didn’t speak to reporters. On his team radio, as played on the broadcast, he said Verstappen drove into him. That’s all we have from him.
Alan Permane, who runs Racing Bulls, called the crash “completely unnecessary” and said the two of them “can both do better”. On Sky, Jamie Chadwick said Lawson probably didn’t need to hold his ground against the senior team’s star. Bernie Collins said she thought both would regret it.
Is his seat really in danger?
Honestly, it’s hard to say. His Racing Bulls deal runs out at the end of this year. Red Bull owns both teams, and Verstappen carries a lot of weight there. That’s why people are worried for him.
Racing Bulls hasn’t named its 2027 drivers yet. In September, PlanetF1 reported that Lawson and his team-mate Arvid Lindblad were both likely to stay. Formula 1’s own website called Lawson the favourite to be kept. Sky Sports has mentioned one more name, Nikola Tsolov, a Red Bull junior who is second in Formula 2 right now.
Nobody at the team has said the Mexico crash will count against him.
Has he actually been good this year?
Yes. He’s ninth in the standings. That makes him the top driver outside the four front-running teams. Sky Sports says he has twice as many points as Lindblad, who is a rookie.
Here’s his best stuff:
- 5th in Monaco
- 6th at Silverstone
- 7th in China, Canada and Singapore
Before his summer call-up, Formula 1’s website said he’d scored in six of seven races. Those points are a big part of why Racing Bulls is fighting for fifth in the teams’ table.
Karun Chandhok told Sky it would be “unjust” to drop him. Collins said that, going by the numbers, Lindblad is the one who should be nervous.
Why does he keep getting into fights with big names?
People in the paddock tend to describe him as a stubborn defender who gives very little room. Mexico isn’t the first time that’s got him into trouble with a top driver. It’s the newest one.
It’s also probably part of how he gets points out of a midfield car. You don’t finish 5th in Monaco by letting people past.
How did a kid from Pukekohe get to F1?
He was born in Hastings and grew up in Pukekohe, a town known more for its old race track than for making F1 drivers. He started karting young and won national titles, then moved up to cars as a teenager.
Part of the money came from a group of local backers. New Zealand media have written about that a lot. Drivers from small countries don’t usually have a big company or a rich family paying the bills, so they find other ways.
Here’s the climb, step by step:
- Won Formula First in New Zealand
- Raced Formula 4 in Australia and Germany, and was 2nd in the German series in 2018, behind Enzo Fittipaldi
- Won the Toyota Racing Series at home in early 2019, a winter series that pulls in young drivers from everywhere
- Signed by the Red Bull junior team soon after
- Won races in FIA Formula 3 in 2019 and 2020, against guys who are on the F1 grid now
What happened in 2021?
This was a wild year. He raced Formula 2, and Red Bull also put him in a Ferrari run by AF Corse in DTM, the German touring car series. He led that championship for a big part of the season.
Then he lost it at the last round at the Norisring. There was a crash at the first corner, plus a strategy call by a rival team that people argued about. He was 19. In public, he handled it a lot better than most people that age would, and fans noticed.
In 2022 he was 3rd in Formula 2. There was no F1 seat free for 2023, so he went to Japan for Super Formula. He won on his first weekend there and was in the title fight until the last round.
How did he end up in the Red Bull car, twice?
The first F1 chance came out of nowhere. At the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, Daniel Ricciardo broke a bone in his hand in practice. AlphaTauri called Lawson. He started five races that year and got his first point with 9th in Singapore. He spent half of 2024 as a reserve, then took Ricciardo’s seat for the last six races at the team, which by then was called RB.
That got him the top seat: Red Bull, next to Verstappen, for 2025. It lasted two races. After tough weekends in Australia and China, Red Bull swapped him with Yuki Tsunoda and sent him back to the junior team, now Racing Bulls. It was one of the fastest demotions F1 has seen in years.
He didn’t fall apart. Formula 1’s website counted seven points finishes for him over the rest of 2025, and that got him a full 2026 season.
Then this summer, Isack Hadjar broke his left wrist boxing in the gym, RacingNews365 reported. Lawson went back into the Red Bull for three rounds. The first was Zandvoort, again. He finished:
- 7th in the Netherlands
- 14th at Monza, after an engine penalty
- 6th in Madrid
When Hadjar came back for Azerbaijan, Red Bull thanked Lawson for “his professionalism, dedication and hard work”, in a statement quoted by RNZ. Hadjar has since been confirmed at Red Bull for 2027.
What should fans watch for next?
Qualifying in Mexico is Saturday evening, then the one-place drop kicks in for Sunday’s race. After that, the big thing is the Racing Bulls line-up for 2027. Until the team names it, every result he gets will be read as part of that story.
What we could not verify
No one at Racing Bulls or Red Bull has linked the Mexico crash to the 2027 decision, so we can’t say it will count against him. We don’t have championship points after the Mexico City weekend, because the race hadn’t been run when we wrote this. Broadcast radio clips are edited, so we’ve only quoted what Sky Sports reported. We don’t publish contract terms or salary.
Sources
- Sky Sports
- TimesLIVE
- Motorsport.com
- Formula 1 (official website)
- RacingNews365
- RNZ
- PlanetF1
