- Liam Lawson reveals the radical setup change Red Bull proposed before dropping him.
- Horner told Sky Sports the engineers were “very concerned” about their driver.
- Verstappen privately backed Lawson and called the two-race verdict premature.
Liam Lawson has accused Red Bull Racing of crafting a false public story to justify dropping him after just two races in 2025.
The New Zealander says the team used the results of a setup experiment they asked him to run as evidence against him, then told the world he was mentally struggling.
Lawson made the claims on the High Performance podcast. He rejected the idea that Red Bull demoted him out of concern for his well-being. He called it the opposite of what actually happened.
His version paints a picture of a young driver who trusted his team, agreed to a risky car change in Shanghai, and then watched that decision blow up his career overnight.
A radical change the team proposed, then used against him
The trouble began before the 2025 season even started. Lawson had almost no time in the car before his first race. He completed barely half a day of testing at Jerez.
His Bahrain sessions were compromised by technical problems. He went into the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne, a track he had never raced at, without proper preparation.
An engine failure cost him FP3 in Melbourne. He missed planned soft tyre runs before qualifying. Mistakes followed. He was knocked out in Q1 and started the race from the back. None of it was ideal, but none of it was unusual for a driver in his position.
China was worse. It was a sprint weekend at another unfamiliar circuit. Both Lawson and Max Verstappen were unhappy with the RB21. The car was not working for anyone.
The team held a meeting on Saturday night. They agreed to try something drastic. Lawson described it as a change “you would never do on a race weekend,” roughly 10 times the size of a normal adjustment.
The goal was to find a different balance, a more stable and drivable car. The team pitched it as a development exercise. He was starting last anyway.
“It was a risky gamble, and even if it worked, the probability of it working in a race was very low,” Lawson said on the podcast. “They proposed it to me like this: ‘This is going to help you in the future, and it’s going to give us a bit more direction.'”
He agreed. The car destroyed its front tyres and was nearly impossible to drive. The race was a write-off. Lawson finished 12th on paper, only because three drivers ahead of him were disqualified.
The phone call came the next day. He had flown back to the UK expecting simulator work. Instead, he was told he had lost his seat.
“That performance was used against me,” he said. “They can’t judge me for that. It’s a team sport.”
Horner’s “cruel to be kind” explanation and Lawson’s flat rejection
Red Bull framed the swap with Yuki Tsunoda as an act of protection. Then, team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports the situation was “really affecting Liam quite badly.” He said engineers had come to him “very concerned” about the weight on Lawson’s shoulders.
Horner called the demotion “horrible” but necessary. “Sometimes you’ve got to be cruel to be kind,” he said. He suggested Lawson might need half a season to recover, and Red Bull did not have that kind of time.
Lawson has rejected every word of it.
“Everything was presented as if I were going through a mental crisis,” he said. “Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth.”
He insists his mindset never changed between the first two races and his return to Racing Bulls. He said his confidence would only have taken a hit if he had been struggling after half a season, not after two weekends on tracks he had never seen.
The problems were practical, not psychological. He was underprepared, thrown into a difficult car, and then asked to run an experiment that wrecked his race.
Horner has since left Red Bull. He has also distanced himself from the demotion, claiming it was not his decision. That shift in accountability has not gone unnoticed.
Verstappen backed his teammate, and Lawson’s rebuild proves the point
Verstappen disagreed with the decision at the time and has not changed his mind since. “Two races for a team-mate, of course, I didn’t agree with that,” he told Viaplay at the time. He said two weekends were far too early to make that call and that the move risked ruining someone’s chance at a top team.
Lawson said Verstappen was “very supportive” through the whole ordeal. He did not share specifics, but described the four-time champion as someone who stayed real with him when it mattered.
The numbers backed Verstappen’s concern. Tsunoda scored just 30 points across 22 rounds in the same car. He finished 17th in the 2025 championship. Red Bull dropped to third in the constructors’ standings.
Lawson, back at Racing Bulls, has rebuilt in exactly the way Red Bull claimed he could not. He sits 10th in the 2026 standings with 28 points. He has scored in five of the first seven races.
Former Red Bull driver David Coulthard has called his season a “brilliant job.” He is a regular in Q3 and has become the team’s lead driver alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad.
Lawson tried to cope by pretending the Red Bull stint never happened. “The way it all went down was just so crazy,” he said. “I’m just going to pretend I never even went there.”
That is no longer an option. The story he told on the High Performance podcast has made sure of it. A team asked its driver to take a risk. The risk failed. And the failure became the reason to let him go.
