Liam Lawson hits back at Red Bull ‘mentally struggling’ demotion narrative

Liam Lawson has rejected Red Bull’s claim that he was mentally struggling before his demotion, insisting the team unfairly judged him after just two races and used a failed set-up gamble against him.

Instead, he feels the team unfairly judged him after a wretched Chinese Grand Prix in which he, on the team’s behest, ran a “wild” set-up that failed. And then they demoted him.

Liam Lawson reveals betrayal after ‘wild’ Chinese GP gamble

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

His time with the senior team, though, lasted just two race weekends.

Pre-season issues meant Lawson went into the F1 2026 season in his own words “under-prepared”, while the championship also began with two circuits he’d never raced at.

He qualified 18th for the Australian Grand Prix, but started the race from the pit lane as Red Bull made changes to his RB21 in parc ferme. In a Grand Prix that saw six drivers crash, Lawson was the last name on that list.

His second race weekend with Red Bull was a Sprint with Lawson last in Sprint quali, before making gains in the 19-lap short race to finish 14th. However, in qualifying for the Grand Prix he was once again P20, leading to events he believes he was unfairly judged for.

24 hours after his P12 finish in the Chinese Grand Prix, Lawson was informed by Red Bull that he would be returning to Racing Bulls, with Yuki Tsunoda promoted in his stead.

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

But according to the New Zealander, his Chinese Grand Prix troubles were down to a massive set-up change ahead of the Grand Prix, one he agreed to on Red Bull’s behest to help the team potentially find a way forward with the RB21.

Speaking on the High Performance podcast, he explained: “We’d spoken about basically trying something quite wild on the car to get some comfort for me, but also because the team, 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.

“So we decided, okay, let’s start from the pit lane and basically radically change the car. We made a massive, like a change you would never do on a race weekend.”

The “shot in the dark” failed, but Lawson wasn’t worried as there had been method in the madness; it just didn’t work.

“Then flew back to the UK for a simulator on whatever it was, a Tuesday or Wednesday,” he continued, “and on Monday I get the phone call, ‘actually we’re switching you’.

“I was like, ‘what? Why did we do…’ Like if you’d told me before the race, ‘okay, we’re going to run this crazy car for your last race in a Red Bull, or we’re going to run the setup that you’ve run all weekend, what do you think I would have said?'”

“The thing is, this performance was then used against me, which, regardless of the two races, whatever… You know, in any case, two races on two tracks I’ve never been to in a season like that…

“I won’t accept that you can judge me off that.

“It’s such a team game, so everybody is working together, and yeah, that was just obviously not what I felt when that happened.”

Liam Lawson sternly refutes Red Bull’s mentally struggling narrative

But somewhat worse was the narrative that Red Bull made its decision because Lawson was mentally struggling.

Horner doubled down on it when he spoke with Sky Sports ahead of Lawson’s first race back with Racing Bulls in Japan.

“I think with everything that we saw in Australia and China, you could see that it was really affecting Liam quite badly,” said the Briton.

“We could have left it, and I think that Liam is a driver with talent. Maybe within half a season he would have got there, but we just don’t have that amount of time.

“It was something that was very clear to the engineering side within the team, just how much Liam was struggling with it all, and you could see that weight upon his shoulders.

“The engineers were coming to me very concerned about it, and at the end of the day, I think it was the logical thing to do.”

“Of course,” Horner continued, “it’s horrible because you’re taking away someone’s dreams and aspirations, but sometimes you’ve got to be cruel to be kind, and I think that in this instance, this is not the end for Liam.”

Lawson, though, says that could not have been further from the truth.

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“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 said. “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’.”

It was a narrative that took hold on social media, with the New Zealander blocking everything Formula 1 from his social media to avoid the negative narrative.

“The thing is, honestly, there’s so much of that in Formula One that when it first starts to happen, you’re like, ‘wait, that’s totally wrong’. And then you start to really think about it.

“But honestly, it’s happened so much now, especially with all that’s happened over the last 12 months, that you start to just ignore it, to be honest.

“There are so many opinions and rumours and things that go around that are just so untrue. And if you really focus on every single one, it would drive you crazy.

“Then it goes down to how much you even look into social media and stuff like that, and that’s something I just pretty much removed from my life. Especially the Formula One stuff, like every single Formula One account is muted, like just completely muted, so I don’t see anything to do with it online.

“I have people telling me, like, ‘Oh, did you hear about this?’ No, no idea.”

Lawson has emerged as Racing Bulls’ leading driver this season with 28 points to his teammate Arvid Lindblad’s 13, with the team up to P6 in the Constructors’ Championship.

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