New Red Bull driver Liam Lawson admitted he was “too slow” on the first day of practice for the new season in Australia.
He ended Friday’s second session 17th out of the 19 drivers who set times. Oliver Bearman was unable to participate after damaging his Haas in a crash during the opening session.Although Lawson avoided the barriers, his quickest time on the soft tyres was over half a second slower than team mate Max Verstappen managed. However Verstappen’s session was not especially smooth as he had to repeatedly back out of attempts to start a flying lap due to traffic.
Lawson said he was “comfortable, just too slow” on his first day in the new RB21 at a grand prix weekend.
“We have a lot of work to do overnight,” he told the official F1 channel. “Obviously, day one on a new track [for me], we were expecting to have some work to do, but probably not this much. We’ll obviously work on it overnight and then try and improve it for tomorrow.”
He admitted it was “not really” clear what they need to do to improve. “I think if we knew that we’d know how to fix it as well.
“In general, just grip when we need to use it on that short run. But then, in general, our long-run pace was slow as well. Obviously we’ll work on it.”
Of the six drivers beginning their first full seasons in Melbourne this weekend, Isack Hadjar occupied the highest position in Friday’s running, finishing sixth. Jack Doohan was 14th for Alpine and Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli was 16th, six-thousandths of a second ahead of Lawson. Behind him were Gabriel Bortoleto in his Sauber and Bearman.
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BLS (@brightlampshade)
14th March 2025, 7:40
The more things change the more things stay the same!
Good luck to you Liam, you’re going to need it
HAL
14th March 2025, 15:48
I’m sure it will be a challenge….
But they also said on F1 TV that Liam was on the old car spec while Max had a new spec.
I don’t how much of a difference it makes but it’s a pitty it’s not made more transparent. And as the media saw it, why are they not emphasing it…. It creates a narrative that all rhetoric haters are very happy to jump on (Perez was better, Tsunoda would be better – a bit ridiculous after just 2 FP)
HappyHating
14th March 2025, 16:04
Dunno how much it played, but he was running an old car spec while Max had a new one. Pitty it’s not mentionned ; but I guess a lot of people are happy to criticize this particular young driver…
Dex
14th March 2025, 16:51
He was slower than last year’s cars, so…
HAl
14th March 2025, 22:13
So? Earth is flat ?
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
14th March 2025, 8:02
As I said many times, being the team mate of the Greatest of All Time isn’t an easy job. If the gap is similar in qualifying and the next few races, hopefully at least some people will be honest with themselves and eat crow after horrible, nasty comments they’ve made last couple years about Perez.
RUTH222
14th March 2025, 22:12
I wouldn’t know why. They switched a mediocre driver for praticaly a rookie who only proved to be somewhat comeparable to another mediocre driver.
Canderous (@yoshif8tures)
14th March 2025, 8:16
Perez 2.0 is here.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
14th March 2025, 8:31
That’s too soon to say, wait till quali at least! But can’t expect better than 2021 perez, I guess they hope he doesn’t deteriorate after.
Laz
14th March 2025, 10:46
Wouldn’t that be Albon 3.0, or perhaps Gasly 4.0?
Dex
14th March 2025, 11:40
As I was always saying, I’m pretty convinced that Perez is a (much?) better driver. There was absolutely no reason to believe that Lawson is better. Perez proved himself in different cars and circumstances, Lawson never did. He was average in F2 and no better (or even equal) to Tsunoda, who also isn’t a superstar himself.
The only difference is that Lawson is not some “funny Mexican” with a Speedy Gonzales accent, so he may seem less parodic to some of us; if I may be sarcastic.
HAL
14th March 2025, 16:06
Yeah… The beggining of your post is very surprising, but the second part explains the first one :-)
Edvaldo
14th March 2025, 12:45
He’s already doing the lows of Perez in the first round, now they better expect him to do the good moments sooner or later, because if he doesn’t, the only thing they’ll have achieved with the ‘firing Perez operation’ was to lose a lot of money.
Coventry Climax
14th March 2025, 20:23
And tequila..
baasbas
14th March 2025, 8:32
The best move to attract heat would be to do a Bearman. He didn’t.
So there is that…
ankita
14th March 2025, 8:32
Too early to assess this but, if this is the trend, RBR will regret dropping Perez. At least, last year, they had the excuse that it was the driver that was bad. Now, they will realize that it is the whole structure of the team that’s always been geared towards one car to the detriment of the other. This is not necessarily a wrong strategy if the favoured car is winning. But if it is not, then the team will be in trouble.
For the anti-Perez people. True, he wasn’t the best match for Verstappen (I don’t know who would). But from there to ditching him as a useless driver is a far stretch. He was for so many years the best of the rest. He was the only driver outside the top teams continously to grab podium in both Sauber and Force India/Racing Point. He got old, he got a family (and kids), he might have lost performance. But he was in a very difficult situation while at RBR.
baasbas
14th March 2025, 8:45
@ankita
I feel the second part of your comment is contradicting the first part. I think it is fair to say they took the correct decision of dropping Perez. It is fair to say he wasn’t going to improve. For a team not known for patience, they were with Perez.
So even a negative take on Lawson could be: more of the same.
But at least he has the potential to improve*
*until proven otherwise
El Pollo Loco
14th March 2025, 8:52
Dropping Perez wasn’t the mistake. He is awful. It was not choosing any of the great options they had (Alonso, Hulk, Sainz) to keep Max happy and then choosing to put a rookie with an average pedigree rather than Yuki out of spite toward Honda.
Maybe Lawson will figure it out though. Far too soon to be sure. We really can’t judge any of the drivers or teams yet based on two FPs at one specific track. What we see may prove to be a broadly accurate preview or the standouts and strugglers in Melbourne may be totally forgotten a month or two from now because it was not representative.
El Pollo Loco
15th March 2025, 1:16
And if anyone doubts this was about Honda, listen to what Marko said this week:
Kribana (@krichelle)
14th March 2025, 9:08
It has never been about Perez. It has always been about Red Bull being incapable of developing cars that suit both drivers and never interested in the Constructor’s championship. They were never interested in the Constructor’s championship.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
14th March 2025, 9:49
There aren’t anti-Perez people. He was just bad, a mess, for 2 years. There was no way to recover from that. You just HAVE to try another guy, even if he ends up the same. Because the chances of making it work with the new driver are higher than with what you had.
I really doubt the whole of Red Bull is geared towards Max. He’s the favoured one for sure, but I think the car is just tricky to drive if you’re not Max. And the constant scruteneering (from inside and outside) you are subject to at RBR makes it worse. It’s like Marc Marquez and Honda. Red Bull risk going the same way, once Max leaves and no one can pick up the car and put it where it belongs.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
14th March 2025, 10:06
He might have the toughest seat on the grid. I know it’s just a couple of practice sessions, but it could be a long year Liam. Max isn’t a god, Sainz and Danny Ric gave him fair competition at times, if I was Liams engineer I’d tell him his job isn’t to beat Max, just be close enough to take points away from Lando, Oscar, Lewis et al. There aren’t many who get into F1 and aren’t expected to out perform the other side of the garage.
I’d emphasise that, to at least try and take some of the pressure off.
An Sionnach
14th March 2025, 10:18
It would be funny if Tsunoda finally got that call up to Red Bull… to partner Lawson and give Max his faster car! Or, the dastardly pantomime villains(!) at Red Bull might just paint the cars different colours, giving Lawson, Tsunoda and Hadjar Red Bull cars, while only allowing Max to have the secret rocketship. They can sneak into the garages of other teams and make sly swaps, too, doing the same to Zak Brown’s car collection.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
14th March 2025, 10:30
I can’t remember which race i was, but towards the end of last season Checo very publicly looked at both cars side by side, seemingly to check they were the same.
Laz
14th March 2025, 10:53
I’m firmly in the camp of they should not have put Lawson in the car, Tsunoda was the better option of the two, and nothing Horner really said about the reasons why actually added up. That said, it’s just a practice session for goodness sake. Give the kid a chance before coming out with these articles. I know Max has a trend of decimating his teammates now, but you need to let a sequence of race weekends play out before identifying a trend and we’ve only just finished the first day of the new season.
Edvaldo
14th March 2025, 12:23
Yet Helmut Marko is talking trash about other teams’ drivers being slow.
The nerve of that man!
Paul
14th March 2025, 19:56
Hey Marko, apparently Alpine’s ‘C’ Driver, driving a ‘C’ Car, beat your ‘B’ Driver driving an ‘A’ Car
normality78 (@normality78)
15th March 2025, 4:30
Like
normality78 (@normality78)
15th March 2025, 4:30
Bring back Honey Badger already. It is proven all NOT any better than him