Liam Lawson's Future in the 2026 Formula 1 Market
Liam Lawson’s future is turning into the slow-burn saga of the 2026 Formula 1 market. Not a blockbuster done in a day, but a story that keeps looping back into the paddock conversation every single weekend.
On paper, the grid looks relatively settled. Thirteen drivers are already locked in for next year, and most of the remaining nine are widely expected to stay where they are. Stability, at least on the surface.
Red Bull are the exception. They always are.
Only Max Verstappen is officially tied down across the organisation’s four seats at Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls. Everything else feels written in pencil. GPblog understands the current plan is to keep the structure intact: Isack Hadjar alongside Verstappen at Red Bull, Lawson continuing at Racing Bulls with Arvid Lindblad.
So the short-term picture is clear enough. The long-term one is anything but.
A points haul that hasn’t silenced the doubts
Lawson has been back in the spotlight over the last three Grands Prix, stepping in for the injured Hadjar. Seventh in Zandvoort, 14th at Monza, sixth in Madrid: a tidy run, solid points, no disasters. For many teams, that would be more than enough to calm nerves.
Nico Rosberg is not “many teams”.
The 2016 world champion, speaking on Sky F1, cut straight to the heart of the Red Bull dilemma. This is not a team that shops in the middle aisle.
For Rosberg, Red Bull are hunting only the absolute elite – “the next Max Verstappen and the next Sebastian Vettel.” Anything short of that, he argued, simply doesn’t meet the bar. Right now, based on what Lawson has shown in this latest stint, Rosberg doubts the New Zealander belongs in that bracket.
Hadjar and Lindblad, he suggested, are still very much alive in those internal discussions. The message between the lines was clear: Lawson may be doing a decent job, but “decent” has never been the currency at Red Bull.
Mekies pushes back
Inside the camp, the view is far more sympathetic.
Laurent Mekies, Red Bull team principal and CEO, offered a firm defence of Lawson’s performances. Dropping into a different car, with a different team, mid-season is a task that routinely exposes even experienced drivers. Mekies made a point of underlining just how well Lawson has handled that disruption.
He highlighted the sixth place in Madrid, the seventh at Zandvoort, and argued that Monza could have yielded a similar result without the clash with Nico Hülkenberg and the resulting front wing damage. In Mekies’ eyes, Lawson has not only met expectations, he has pushed up against the upper edge of them.
There was another telling remark from the boss: this version of Lawson is “very different” to the driver who appeared in the first two races of 2025. Inside Red Bull, they see growth, adaptability, and a driver learning quickly on the job. That matters in a way the raw results sheet never fully captures.
A different Red Bull, a different calculation
Rosberg’s critique carries weight. When a world champion questions whether you’re truly Red Bull material, people listen. Yet his comments also brush up against a new reality.
This is not quite the same Red Bull that operated under the hard-edged Christian Horner and Helmut Marko regime. The ruthlessness remains, but the tone has shifted. There is a little more room for development, a little more patience with youth, a little more willingness to let a driver grow into a role instead of demanding instant superstardom.
That subtle cultural change could be Lawson’s biggest ally.
He is not Verstappen. He is not Vettel. No one in the current pool is. What he is, right now, is a composed stand-in delivering points, making few mistakes, and giving his team principal enough encouragement to speak up publicly on his behalf.
In a team that once chewed through young drivers at a frightening rate, that alone feels like a significant step.
The contracts and line-ups for 2026 will eventually crystallise. The question is whether Red Bull still define “good enough” in the old way, or whether Lawson is about to become the first real test case of this new era.
