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Liam Lawson rejects 'false' Red Bull exit narrative, argues China performance was "used against" him

Liam Lawson has denied claims that Red Bull demoted him to protect his mental well-being

Lydia Mee

Published: Jun 22, 2026, 2:49 PM

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Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Liam Lawson has strongly shot down suggestions that his sudden demotion from Red Bull was a protective measure due to mental strength struggles, branding the public narrative around his exit as entirely false.

The New Zealander endured a difficult and very short-lived stint at Red Bull alongside four-time champion Max Verstappen, which only lasted two race weekends at the start of 2025.

Speaking on the High Performance podcast, Lawson opened up about the harsh reality of the demotion.

"I tried to [not let it affect me] as much as possible, I even pretended it never even happened," Lawson explained. "I spent two races there, and the way it all went down was just so crazy that I honestly was like, I'm just going to pretend I never even went there."

Instead, Lawson pointed to a lack of preparation and a car setup gamble in China that ultimately backfired.

"Let me say, firstly, you can always do a better job. So I look at those two races, if I want to reflect on them, and I did at the time, I could have done a better job in some ways. But I think just the way we did, really no testing. I did half a day before the season, and even then, our Bahrain testing was very compromised as well. We had some issues, and I just went into the first weekend very unprepared.

"I just kept telling myself that I'll just deal with it, it'll be fine. I think we all back ourselves, but with how close, especially last year, it was so close, if I'm three tenths off Max, I'm out in Q1, pretty much. It's so close."

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

He added: "But it was the preparation that I don't think we did a good job at all. But then maybe I could have done a better job as well. And then Melbourne, I had missed FP3 with an engine issue, which we had planned to do two soft tyre runs before quali. So I went into quali with no soft tyre running, and then I made mistakes.

"And that's where, OK, I was unprepared going in, but I tried to make up for it and locked up, went off, which I never do. It was just stupid mistakes that I never do. Knocked out, and then I'm starting the race at the back.

"Then we went to China, and it was a sprint weekend. I'd never driven there and it was the same kind of thing, trying to just make up for lack of preparation and little mistakes.

"We had spoken about basically trying something quite wild on the car to get some comfort for me, but also because at the time collectively we weren't happy at all with the car. Max wasn't happy. Everyone was like, 'This is not working, and we need to try something quite radical here.'

"And so we all had a meeting on Saturday night, and it was decided, I was on board with it because the idea was let's try something quite crazy, but it might help get a direction for Liam and for the team going forward to make this car a bit easier to drive. We decided, 'OK, let's start from the pitlane and basically radically change a car.' We made a massive change you would never do on a race weekend, like a normal change times 10.

"Trying to get the same balance out of the car, just in a very different way. An easier car to drive, a more stable car to drive. But it's a shot in the dark, and even if it works, the chance of it working over a race was very low. And I knew all of these things, but it was proposed to me as, 'This is going to help you for the future, and this is going to give us a bit more direction. We're going to try this. You're starting last in the race, it's done anyway. Let's just try something, and this will help you.'"

The experiment proved disastrous, heavily degrading the front tyres and ruining his race pace.

"So, I ran it. It sucked for this race. The car was so hard to drive and just killed tyres and destroyed our race."

Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

After the second round of the season in China, Lawson found out he had lost his Red Bull seat and he would be returning to Racing Bulls for the Japanese Grand Prix.

"This performance [in China] was then used against me, which, regardless of the two races, two races on two tracks I've never been to in a season like that. I won't accept that. You can't judge me by that. It's such a team game. Everybody is working together. That was obviously not what I felt when that happened."

Rumours circulated in the paddock that Red Bull management had stepped in to shield him from the immense pressure of the frontrunning seat. Lawson, however, has strongly denied this.

"The whole thing was played out to be me being mentally struggling and all this stuff, and like they were doing it to protect me," he explained. "That honestly just could not be further from what it was actually like."

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