How Racing Bulls aims to “extract talent” from returning Lawson

Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies insists Liam Lawson’s talent has not “disappeared” after the New Zealander was demoted back to the team following two poor outings for Red Bull.

Lawson is back behind the wheel of a Racing Bull for the Japanese Grand Prix after his promotion to the senior team was cut short, with Yuki Tsunoda swapped in to take his place.

While he might not have been delighted to receive the news from Christan Horner, Lawson has been welcomed back into the Racing Bulls fold with open arms and Mekies wants to help him rediscover his mojo.

“Look, Liam is in a good place. He's in good spirit. I'm not going to tell you that he was happy about the news last week, because certainly it was difficult to digest,” he said.

“But honestly, the next day he was with us in Faenza for the seat fit the day after, he was back in the sim. And here we are, we are in Japan. So he's in good spirits.

“He knows he has an important role to play with us in the battle we have in the midfield. He knows he has a point to prove out there. So we are all very conscious that his talent is there and it's about finding the right conditions to extract it back out of him.

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls

Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images

“I think we were all surprised. Of course, I think nobody was expecting that he would be back of the grid for these two races. You know, it was certainly a very tricky set of circumstances.

“But to tell you that any of us who would have anticipated that would be a lie. So, that being said, with high confidence, we think that his talent did not disappear. And we start back in that country where we left it last year.”

Red Bull’s call to opt for Lawson over Tsunoda for the 2025 drive was controversial at time, the former having completed just 11 grand prix compared to Tsunoda’s four full seasons with the junior squad.

Mekies revealed he gave both drivers his backing when the decision was taken on who would replace Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen’s team-mate this year.

“So, it's an interesting one. As a team, as VCARB, our first objective is competitiveness. Our second objective is to grow the young talents for the Red Bull family,” he said.

“So, our job is to get to the end of the year, or sooner in some cases, and to put on the table one or two drivers which hopefully are of interest for our big brother - in the case of last season, we felt that was the case with both drivers.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Mark Thompson - Getty Images

“That's what we presented to Christian, to Helmut, and to the Red Bull family. Two drivers that are, according to us, able to step up into the bigger team and then, of course, the rest of the decision is completely up to them.”

That decision has since been sensationally reversed and, as Tsunoda prepares for his first race as a Red Bull driver at his home grand prix in Japan no less, Mekies backed the 24-year-old to make the grade.

“Yes, I'm sure he's ready,” he said. “We had these questions here many, many times in the past and we kept repeating that Yuki has made an incredible step last year compared to his previous seasons.

“We really felt that if he was going to make another step in 2025, we would be talking about a very serious level. And that's exactly what he has done. So, credit to him.

“He also had the bad news at the end of last season. He went to Japan. He came back with a very, very strong spirit. As soon as he joined us back in Faenza, he worked extremely hard. The spirit was there. The attention to all the details was there.”

Tsunoda started well for Red Bull, finishing sixth in the first practice session at Suzuka and just a tenth of a second shy of Verstappen.