Lawson hailed for response to ‘borderline embarrassing’ Red Bull demotion

Liam Lawson has earned praise from Naomi Schiff for the way he responded to his “borderline embarrassing” Red Bull demotion, with the New Zealander establishing himself as Racing Bulls’ clear team leader.

Lawson was promoted to Red Bull last year, signing on as Max Verstappen’s teammate after a late-season six-race audition with Red Bull’s sister team in 2024.

Liam Lawson praiesed after Red Bull demotion

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His time with the senior team, though, lasted just two race weekends as he was unable to drag himself out of Q1.

He was dropped on the Monday after race two, the Chinese Grand Prix, demoted to Racing Bulls with Yuki Tsunoda taking his seat.

Announcing the switch, then team principal Christian Horner said Red Bull had a “duty of care to protect” Lawson, who had struggled.

It was a hard hit for a driver who had always dreamed of racing for Red Bull, but as the months went by, Lawson not only absorbed the blow, but he also rose to the challenge.

Continuing with Racing Bulls this season, the 24-year-old has stamped his authority over his rookie teammate Arvid Lindblad. Not only has he outscored his teammate by 39 points to 20, but he has also yet to finish a Grand Prix behind the Briton.

Put to Schiff that Lawson has been a revelation this season, she told Sky Sports F1: “It has been.

“It was really tough what they [Red Bull] did to Liam Lawson. They promoted him into that seat quite quickly, and they removed him from that seat even quicker.

“And yes, that is very demotivating.

“I think it’s borderline embarrassing sometimes for drivers.

“You come in there, you think you’ve made it to the big team, and then you just get whacked back, and that’s not nice. It’s not, it’s not a good feeling.

“But he’s managed to turn it around, and I think if anything, it’s for the better.

“He’s in a car that’s clearly competing well, in an environment that clearly is nurturing them a little bit better than what the old version of Red Bull used to do, and pulling out great results week in, week out.

“They’re now putting a lot of pressure on Alpine for their fifth spot in the constructors’ title; happy times for both of them.”

Liam Lawson v Arvid Lindblad: Racing Bulls F1 2026 scores

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

Last month, Lawson spoke extensively about his Red Bull exit and how he felt he was unfairly treated by the team.

While Horner and the team billed it as their “duty of care to protect” to protect the driver who was mentally struggling, Lawson said that could not have been further from the truth.

“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 told the High Performance Racing podcast. “That honestly just could not be further from what it was actually like.

“So, yeah, again at the time those two weekends, I remember there was a lot. There was already talk about, ‘okay, you know, it’s a hard time for him, he must be struggling mentally’, and stuff like this.

“So, and I thought, rather than me getting out there and saying I’m totally fine and argue against it, I was let me take my responsibility here and say I can do a better job, which is what I tried to do on this two weekends.

“Every time I get in front of camera, I was trying to be grateful and say, ‘this is not good enough, I need to do a better job’.

“But then it was all that that was taken to, ‘oh, he’s mentally struggling, and that’s why we’re helping him out’.”

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