2025 started off about as embarrassing as possible for Liam Lawson. Maybe the only way it could've gotten worse would've been if he got demoted after one race instead of two.
But after shaking of that decision, whether you think it was fair or not, Lawson has found himself probably happy to be where he's at: putting up solid points and not driving in the struggling Red Bull car anymore.
Liam Lawson's stats
Standings Position: 15th
Points: 20
Best Finish: 6th
Best Qualifying Position: 6th
Head-to-head race finishes (vs. Hadjar): 3-8
Head-to-head qualifying: 3-9
Head-to-head points: 20-22
Remember how doomed Lawson's career looked?
The stink of Lawson's early-season results have really seemed to pull away from where he's landed at the break. His Red Bull tenure featured three qualifying sessions that were a P19, P20 and P20. His best finish was a P12 in China, but that was only in part because of three DQs.
So with a bit of embarrassment to get past, he returned to Racing Bulls and struggled. Lawson seemed to be on a one-way ticket for another racing series come 2026.
Over his first five goes with Racing Bulls in 2025, he scored zero points, was averaging a finish of about 15th, retired from one race due to crash damage and wasn't doing anything in qualifying that was worth inspiration either. Coming into Monaco, teammate Isack Hadjar had a 4-1 head-to-head qualifying advantage, a shutout 5-0 in grands prix, and had seven points on the board to Lawson's goose egg.
But since both Racing Bulls cars posted 12 points in Monte Carlo (Lawson with a P8 for his first points of the season), the tide has turned. Not only for Lawson, but the team as a whole.
Lawson lining up his F1 future with recent results
Since Monaco, Lawson has DNFed twice. In Montreal, it was due to power issues and at Silverstone it was a crash that he wasn't really at fault for.
Throwing those two results out, Lawson has finished outside the points only once since the Monaco Grand Prix (P11 in Spain) with three P8s and a P6 in Austria. While Hadjar still holds big advantages in the head-to-head overall, Lawson is 3-3 over the last seven races (not including the Britain double DNF) and is outscoring Hadjar 20-15 over that period.
Whether it was Lawson having to take a step back from his unnerving start to the season, a need to understand the Racing Bulls car again or something else, Lawson has looked like the driver with so much promise that we saw over the last few seasons.
Hadjar still holds the upper hand as a rookie, though. Even amid his recent run of success, Lawson was still out-qualified by Hadjar 2-5 over the previous seven. He will need a better one-lap pace to draw more eyes back to him, since so many are now focused on Hadjar instead.
Ultimately, Lawson has been the better Racing Bulls driver over the last two months. And even though that is in part because Hadjar has slipped into a midseason funk, Lawson deserves more praise for what he has been able to do to rebound from an all-time disastrous situation.