Liam Lawson reveals Daniel Ricciardo impact after Red Bull demotion
Liam Lawson and Daniel Ricciardo
Liam Lawson has admitted that Daniel Ricciardo proved a valuable sounding board during the opening stages of the F1 2025 season.
Lawson endured a turbulent start to the campaign, initially racing alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull before being bumped to Racing Bulls following the Chinese Grand Prix.
How Daniel Ricciardo helped Liam Lawson at his lowest point
Lawson’s full-time arrival in F1 came after Daniel Ricciardo made a subdued exit from Formula 1 following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.
After eight race wins in a career spanning 13 years, there was no formal announcement or grand send-off as Ricciardo quietly left the paddock before the end of the season.
But rather than being bitter about the way the curtain came down on his career, the Australian instead looked to help the man he was moved aside for.
As reserve driver for Red Bull and Racing Bulls, Lawson was first in line when Ricciardo broke his hand at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.
Following Free Practice 2 in Zandvoort, Lawson was parachuted in for the balance of the weekend, and four following races, in a stint that jump-started his F1 career.
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To that point, the Kiwi looked set to fall through the cracks; competitive in Formula 2 and a championship contender in Super Formula, there was seemingly no space available within Red Bull’s F1 programme.
That cameo stint in mid-2023 thrust Lawson back into contention, and in-turn heaped pressure on Ricciardo.
When the veteran race winner was overlooked as a potential mid-season replacement for Sergio Perez in F1 2024, the writing was on the wall: Ricciardo was no longer part of Red Bull’s future plans.
That resolved itself in Singapore, with Lawson completing the year at Racing Bulls alongside Yuki Tsunoda, before earning the call-up to the senior team for F1 2025.
It was a move that backfired as the New Zealander, with less than a dozen grands prix to his name as the year started, proved unable to get to grips with the troublesome RB22.
The response from management was to swap him with his former Racing Bulls teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, in a move designed both to improve the performance of Red Bull’s second car on track and protect Lawson from mental destruction.
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As the F1 2025 season played out, it proved the correct move for Lawson, who admits that during that difficult period, he found support from Ricciardo – the man he’d effectively ousted.
“He’s been somebody that I obviously looked up to when I was very young,” Lawson told PlanetF1.com over the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.
“Then, after working alongside him and closely with him in the last couple of years… I learned to have a huge amount of respect [for him] with how everything went down last year, especially, and how respectful he was towards me, and that never changed.
“And then going into this year, especially earlier in the year with how tough it was, he’s somebody I spoke to quite a bit.
“Every time I picked up the phone to ask for advice, he was always there to talk.
“He’s somebody that I have a very, very good amount of respect for.”
Following a difficult start to the campaign, Lawson rediscovered his form mid-season, with Racing Bulls team boss Alan Permane suggesting a discovery made over the Monaco Grand Prix planted the seeds.
Though overlooked for a return to Red Bull for the coming season, by the end of F1 2025 he was all but matching Isack Hadjar.
Such were his performances that they earned him another season, above Tsunoda, thanks in part to the advice of the driver he replaced.
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