The Australian Grand Prix didn’t go to plan for Liam Lawson but Helmut Marko won’t pass judgement on the Red Bull rookie until he’s completed “three to five” races with the senior team.
Promoted to Red Bull for the F1 2025 championship after 11 Grands Prix with the junior team over two seasons, Marko made it clear before the campaign that Lawson’s job was to “help” Max Verstappen win the titles for Red Bull.
Alas, Race One didn’t go to plan.
Lawson was knocked out in Q1 at the Albert Park circuit after aborting his final flying lap in Q1 when a wayward moment through Turn 10 was compounded by a slide at the penultimate corner.
Down in 18th place on the grid and with rain forecast for the Grand Prix, Red Bull bolted a different specification rear wing and rear beam wing onto the New Zealander’s car but it came to nought.
Lawson added his name to the list of non-finishers when he crashed late in the race, the Red Bull driver one of four rookies who didn’t see the chequered flag along Isack Hadjar, Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto.
Spinning off on his slick tyres as others pitted for intermediates in the worsening rain, Lawson said: “We took a chance, hoping that at least half of the track would stay dry.
“We knew that sector three was bad, but we thought that sector one would stay a bit drier, so we carried on. Unfortunately, it was bucketing down with rain.
“At that point, to be honest, I’d backed out of pushing because it was so wet. I was just trying to stay on the track. But obviously, it’s not ideal.”
But while all eyes turned to Marko to see his reaction, the Red Bull motorsport advisor was anything but reactive in his response to Lawson’s performance.
“He wanted to show what he can do,” Marko said, “and unfortunately that went wrong. We have to let him cool down a bit now and observe his development over the first three to five races.”
Development that Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes will come as he insists it was Red Bull’s decision to throw the dice with Lawson and leave him out on slicks in the rain that cost him on Sunday.
“It was a difficult weekend for him,” Horner said. “We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at.
“We took a risk of leaving him out because he was outside of the points, and we thought, ‘You know what, roll the dice, maybe it’ll come right,’ but it was exactly the point that it started to rain more. So it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin.
“I think the one flash of light that he can take out of it is that, on the dry tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the grand prix, a 1:22.9. Max did a 1:23.0, Lando a 1:22.1.
“So, if there was one positive we can take, it’s that his pace in the dry was not too bad.
“The problem is, having missed FP3, you’re on the back foot, and then the pressure builds. He grabbed a brake on the second set of tyres and then, on the third set of tyres, he was half a second up and then another mistake there.
“So I think next weekend will be tough because it’s a Sprint race at a track that he’s not been to before. But, yeah, he’s pretty resilient to this. This weekend, it wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”
Red Bull are third in the Constructors’ standings after Melbourne on 18 points, nine behind McLaren and Mercedes.
