Liam Lawson: One Year Later

Alright so I tweeted earlier that I wasn't sure what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to make a video about F1 in 2026 but I didn't know which angle to take it from. I wanted to talk about the cars and the new regs and how persons were responding to them but honestly to be completely real with you I don't even understand these regs well enough to do a proper unscripted on it so I scratched that. So I'm gonna talk about mercs but there ain't really much to talk about that other content creators haven't already. I always have to try and find a niche topic and I think my niche topic for this weekend is Liam Lawson. I was watching China. I see Liam Lawson bring home the car P7. I believe in both Sprint and Grand Prix. When you look at the fact that Max Verstappen had a nightmare weekend, didn't score any points. Lindblad also didn't score. He had a pretty rough weekend in his second ever weekend of driving F1 cars. Liam Lawson was the guy that stood up and carried Red Bull as an organization and when I saw him do that and looked at how great a drive he had the first thing that came to mind is what a difference a year makes because if we go back to just last year Liam Lawson was in his second and final race as a Red Bull driver and he had a nightmare start to his season. He had a pretty mediocre Australian Grand Prix that resulted in a crash. First race for Red Bull. Qualified poorly. Raced poorly. He was off the pace in the wet. It was terrible. China also not good. He qualified last I believe in either the Sprint or the Grand Prix. It was just not a good time. He was nowhere near the points and he didn't score a single point in his Red Bull tenure and after two weekends he was dropped. Went back to minority and he's still there right now and when you just look at the difference between Liam Lawson last year at Red Bull and Liam Lawson this year at minority it's just a perfect contrast and I think persons are starting to see and I've been saying this for a good while that Liam Lawson deserves to be in the sport. I know he's ruffled feathers. I know people aren't too fond of him especially Perez fans given what took place in late 2024 and you know the whole back and forth they had and even in Australia apparently that was enough to reignite the the rivalry but in terms of his ability to drive an F1 car I never subscribed to the notion that Lawson didn't deserve to be in the sport. I don't think any normal F1 fan believes that. I think any normal F1 fan who knows Liam Lawson knows that he's The only issue that Lawson's gonna have to go through right now is the fact that he is kind of the Red Bull driver that's in no man's land right now. Max Verstappen is the main guy Hajar is the young up-and-comer who's finally getting his bite at the cherry and Lindblad is the even younger up-and-comer who's impressing early had a great junior career Red Bull believe in him he's at Minardi now and they're training him up to one day go to the top team but given the fact that Lawson has already been to the top team and it didn't work out we know Red Bull aren't the type of team that's gonna put you back there so going back to Red Bull is out of the picture so what Lawson needs to do and I think I've said this before but what Lawson needs to do especially this season with a brand new reg package is to prove to the rest of the grid that he is employable and I think he is employable he's a decent driver he's young and he's talented he has pace yes and I don't even think he's as aggressive as he once was I mean when he came here in 2024 he was pretty aggressive because he was trying to prove himself but I think Lawson right now is probably doing the best driving of his Formula One career especially since late 2025 late 2025 Lawson was putting up numbers that were better than Hajar and Hajar's at Red Bull right now so you get what I'm saying but the Red Bull future is over and I think deep down he knows that maybe he'll get an extra season with Minardi and continue to be their benchmark for their junior drivers but in terms of going back to the top team it's not gonna happen if Max were to leave I think they would either import an established driver I don't know who that would be given the contract situations going on right now or they'd probably just give Lindblad a go I don't put it past Red Bull to just put Lindblad straight to the top then bring in Solove but if that happens Lawson would still be at Minardi but again you only have such a ceiling when you're at Minardi so what Lawson needs to do is to prove to other teams that he's employable and this is gonna sound crazy but I think one team he should actually I think one team he should actually target is Aston because I think the situation at Aston is so dire right now and they don't really have juniors like that outside of Jack Crawford I think if Liam Lawson wants to stay in Formula One he should low-key be convincing Aston to take a chance on him for him to be that young driver that the team builds around in the future because yes their situation is dire and yes it may even force Alonso out but when Alonso leaves who do you put in the car I mean you have Jack Crawford but I think Liam Lawson would be a nice option as a just a young driver that you could just build around and just just have some stability in the team post Alonso I think Lawson would be great I think Lawson is a driver that Aston should be targeting because I don't know how many drivers would want to go to Aston period unless they were trying to stay in the sport which walk with me you get what I'm saying here so I don't think that would be too bad an option for Liam but outside of that where else could he go Haas I mean maybe I think if Beerman gets the call up what do Haas do do they bring in Miata that that depends I mean has Miata shown enough in F2 that he's ready for Grand Prix racing I don't know it's really up to Haas I personally think he's a still a bit rougher on the edges but he's his Australian weekend to start off the F2 season was pretty good but I think Lawson could be a guy at Haas certainly we're not talking top teams now because I don't think a top team is gonna want Lawson I don't think he's as exciting as a Scamtonelli or a Beerman he's shown promise but I think he's more in the Colopinto range where yes you're a young driver yes you're talented but I don't necessarily see you as generational right um you can't go to Alpine I don't see that working out Cadillac would be kind of weird seeing that they want Colton Hurter and if they don't get Colton Hurter then they just keep Bottas and Perez there would be no need for a Liam Lawson so yeah as I as I continue to to scan the teams Minardi staying at Minardi for a bit or going to Haas makes sense I think Aston might be the best bet for him man I really do Audi's another one but again they have Freddy Slater waiting in the wings I don't see Hulkenberg necessarily leaving after this season but a Bortoletto Lawson lineup wouldn't be bad in my opinion but again I don't necessarily see Audi wanting a Liam Lawson but yeah the bottom line is all Liam needs to do is just keep driving well and sometimes driving well isn't even enough to stay in the sport but at least if you drive well persons can say you know what man you went out swinging you went out swinging but and I'm gonna keep rambling because there are a lot of other things that are coming to mind as I speak about this one of which being that I think the average age of the Formula One grid being as low as it is kind of shortens F1 careers and this is something I've talked about on Twitter but I don't think I've spoken about it on YouTube before the fact that these drivers are so young that you know they're not they don't really have enough time to develop and it's funny I say that about Lawson because Lawson's been in the sport since 2023 but this is his fourth year driving Formula One cars and it still doesn't feel like he's been here that long but when you have all these young drivers coming in the 18s the 19s the 20s the early 20 year olds they start to fill up the grid then you have to start kicking 20-somethings to make room for other 20-somethings and it causes Formula One careers to be cut kind of short and I think Liam Lawson might become victim of that I mean I certainly don't want to see it happen but you look at him right now how old is he he's 24 yeah he's in his mid-20s that's almost being considered old in Formula One terms but I'm very pleased to see Lawson cook I always knew he was capable of cooking I don't know how anyone could watch Liam Lawson's junior career and not think he was good and I hope he continues to do well I think it might result in him staying at Minardi and being their benchmark or it could even see other doors open for him like maybe at an Aston Martin if Alonzo gives up or even if Stroll gives up man somebody has to drive the car and if you need somebody why not let that somebody be Liam Lawson anyways that's my unscripted I tried I had to talk about something something niche so that something niche is Liam Lawson my name is Internatalk Wheel and I am signing out immediately