Lawson

Liam Lawson was seven years old when he first sat in a kart in his native New Zealand, setting in motion a path that would lead to Formula One. In 2014, he won two national karting championships. The following year, he moved to open-wheel cars, competing in the Formula First Manfield Winter Series with Sabre Motorsport. He won one race and stood on the podium nine times, finishing second in the championship. In 2016, he switched to the New Zealand Formula Ford championship (NZ F1600). With 14 wins and a runner-up finish in 15 races, he became the youngest champion in the series’ history.

Lawson’s career crossed the Tasman Sea in 2017, when he debuted in the Australian Formula 4 Championship with Team BRM. He won five races, added seven more podiums, and finished second overall with 300 points behind Nick Rowe. That same year, he was the fastest driver in the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout for a U.S. F2000 seat but ultimately lost the contract to Keith Donegan. In 2018, he moved to Europe to race in the ADAC Formula 4 series with Van Amersfoort Racing. He won two races at the Lausitzring and a third at the Red Bull Ring, collecting six additional podiums to finish second in the standings with 234 points, behind Lirim Zendeli.

The path to Formula 1 began not in a European karting academy but on the other side of the world. At seven, Lawson started in New Zealand karting, winning two national titles in 2014. He moved to single-seaters in 2015 with Sabre Motorsport in the Formula First Manfield Winter Series, finishing second. The following year, in the NZ F1600 championship, he took 14 victories and became the youngest champion in the series’ history.

In 2017, he graduated to the Australian Formula 4 Championship with Team BRM, scoring five wins and seven further podiums to finish runner-up to Nick Rowe. A late-season attempt at the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout saw him post the fastest lap, but the contract went to Keith Donegan. Lawson then moved to Europe in 2018, racing in ADAC Formula 4 for Van Amersfoort Racing. He won three races—two at Lausitzring and one at the Red Bull Ring—and added six other podiums, finishing second in the standings behind Lirim Zendeli with 234 points. These results, achieved under the Red Bull Junior programme, laid the groundwork for his eventual F1 debut.

Liam Lawson’s arrival in Formula 1 was not a grand, orchestrated debut but a mid-season call-up. In August 2023, at the Dutch Grand Prix, he replaced an injured Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri, stepping into the cockpit for five races as a 21-year-old with no prior F1 mileage. He scored points on his second outing in Singapore, a result that confirmed his readiness. The following year, 2024, he operated as a part-time driver for the newly renamed RB F1 Team, appearing in selected rounds before earning a full-time seat at Red Bull Racing in 2025. That promotion proved short-lived: after just two races, he was moved back to the Racing Bulls squad. Through 39 career starts across three teams—AlphaTauri, RB, and Red Bull—Lawson has yet to record a win, podium, pole position, or fastest lap, but his trajectory has been defined by resilience and the ability to seize opportunity when it arrives.

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At 39 Grands Prix without a single podium, win, pole, or fastest lap, Liam Lawson’s statistical legacy in Formula 1 remains a blank page. Yet his career arc—from five-race substitute at AlphaTauri in 2023 to a partial season with RB in 2024, then a brief, two-race promotion to Red Bull in 2025 before being returned to Racing Bulls—tells a story of unusual volatility rather than sustained impact. He has no championship seasons, no named circuits or trophies bearing his name, and no public record of being cited as an influence by other drivers. His legacy, at this stage, is defined by potential unfulfilled and a trajectory marked by the Red Bull driver program’s notoriously rapid promotion and demotion cycle. Whether his time in the sport will be remembered as a footnote or a prelude to a longer career remains an open question, one that the numbers alone cannot answer.