Liam Lawson makes stark Red Bull claim with Isack Hadjar advice issued

Former Red Bull Racing driver Liam Lawson has a few words of advice for his current Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar, who has been strongly rumored to fill a seat alongside Max Verstappen: Don’t listen to anyone but yourself.

Lawson admitted that, while it’s difficult for him to make any sweeping statements about his time at Red Bull Racing, he does believe that it’s critical for every driver in that seat to keep a firm grasp on the self confidence that has got him to F1 in the first place.

Liam Lawson’s Red Bull advice for Isack Hadjar

Liam Lawson’s path to his first full-time season in Formula 1 has been chock-full of twists and turns.

The young New Zealander got a chance to make his F1 debut in 2023 at the Dutch Grand Prix when AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo injured his wrist in an accident.

He impressed in the five races he contested that season, and he was the first driver the team called in 2024 after Ricciardo was dropped due to a series of uninspired performances.

Lawson netted another six races, taking two points-scoring finishes during that time — but the Red Bull program was facing an upheaval. With Ricciardo gone and Red Bull Racing driver Sergio Perez departing at the conclusion of the 2024 season, the seat alongside Max Verstappen was left empty. The team opted to promote Lawson, just 11 races into his career.

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It proved to be a deeply inauspicious start for the Kiwi driver. After retiring from the Australian Grand Prix and finishing outside the points in both the sprint and grand prix in China, Lawson was demoted back to Racing Bulls, with Yuki Tsunoda promoted in his place.

Tsunoda, too, has struggled to impress. The seat alongside Verstappen has often been a notoriously challenging one to fill, and while the Japanese driver is hoping to remain with the team come 2026, it seems that Red Bull may instead be considering Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar.

The French-Algerian driver had a challenging start to the F1 2025 season, when he crashed out of the Australian Grand Prix before the end of the formation lap, prompting him to return to the paddock in tears. But he was able to rally, securing his first points-paying finish three races into the year.

Though not every race has been perfect, Hadjar also snagged a podium finish after Lando Norris suffered a retirement at the Dutch Grand Prix, followed by a top-10 in Monza that saw him secure ninth overall in the World Drivers’ Championship standings. All eyes are now on Hadjar as a potential replacement for Tsunoda.

With that in mind, Lawson was asked ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to offer some advice to his teammate.

“I think from the outside, obviously, we all look in and see how it’s a very tough place to be,” Lawson said of Red Bull Racing.

“For me, it’s hard to, I guess, look back on and have a proper comparison, just because it was just the two races.”

Yet his advice was simple.

“I think just to prepare well, you know?” he said.

“I think for me, I look back, and I prepared. I tried to do everything I could. Obviously, we can always do things better and look back on that.

“But I would honestly just say, ignore everything that’s really being said and I think it’s being maybe over-talked about, you know, maybe how difficult it is and stuff like this.

“At the end of the day, we’re all racing drivers. We all have to have enough self confidence to be in the sport in the first place; we don’t come here thinking that other people are better than us, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

“So I think to just have faith in yourself.”

Of his teammate, Lawson added, “He’s done a good job this year, and I think he needs to just — if that’s the case — focus on the job and focus on preparing the best he can, not listening to everything that’s said about what it’s going to be like, because at the end of the end of the day, nobody actually knows, only the guys that have done that.”

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