Lawson, the interview: “Since I was little I was obsessed with anything with an engine”

Racing Bulls owes a lot to Liam Lawson, protagonist of his best season in Formula 1 so far, enhanced by the sixth place recently achieved at Silverstone. Conversely, the New Zealand driver is grateful to the Italian team, with whom he learned to manage the pressure of the paddock, which is particularly strong within the Red Bull group. Even before that, however, Lawson was no stranger to pressure, having played for a DTM title with Ferrari until the end, as he said in the exclusive interview granted to FormulaPassion. The path to Formula 1 Like many of his colleagues, Lawson’s passion for racing blossomed at an early age: “As a child I was practically obsessed with cars and motorbikes. Honestly, I think it’s something I was born with. I was obsessed with anything with an engine. I started racing karts at 6 years old and I raced in New Zealand for 6-7 years. For me it was one of the best periods of my life: racing karts with my father and then having moved to Europe at 15 to pursue the dream of Formula 1.” A different story from those we usually hear, given that passion is something that is often inherited from a family member: “My parents never competed. I don’t know why I was obsessed with it, no one else in the family was. It’s something that came from me.” Chasing the dream of Formula 1, however, was not idyllic, having forced Liam to make several sacrifices, some more difficult than others: “Leaving school very early, as well as moving away from family and friends at home. I literally live on the other side of the world. I don’t see them much and when you do it from a young age you can feel quite alone. However, I was doing it to chase my dreams, so I didn’t see it as a sacrifice.” Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images Hamilton and the other idols Once he arrived in Formula 1, Lawson found himself racing on the track alongside his childhood hero, who over time was replaced by other important figures: “When I was very young, my idol was Hamilton. When I raced karts and watched Formula 1, he was someone I followed very closely. As I grew up I started following New Zealand drivers who were trying to get to Formula 1, like Richie Stanaway, Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy.” “They were guys I admired, they were chasing the dream of Formula 1 like me,” says Liam. “They’re all people I have close relationships with and they’ve all had great careers, each in their own way. It’s nice to follow them and be able to talk to them.” Among all, there is one compatriot to whom Lawson is particularly close: “The only person I worked closely with was Nick [Cassidy] when we raced in the DTM together. He is very intelligent, he is among those who can understand the car best on an engineering level. He helped me a lot in the DTM and in Japan when I was racing in Super Formula and he is someone I talk to a lot.” Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images The title lost to Ferrari Just with Cassidy, Lawson raced in the DTM during the 2021 season, at the wheel of the Ferrari 488 GT3 in Red Bull livery: “I had a good season and our best weekend was at the Red Bull Ring, where we won both races and got back into the fight for the championship. It was a great season, something very different to what I was used to. Growing up I had only competed in single-seaters, so racing in the DTM was really fun.” That year Liam came to challenge for the title in the last race at the Norisring, when however he was knocked out by a contact at the start: “It wasn’t a good ending. Honestly, it’s something I’ll never forget. We had done an incredible job. We had done everything necessary to put ourselves in that position and to be intentionally kicked out was not nice.” 2021 however gave Lawson the opportunity to discover the world of GT: “It was profoundly different and, at the beginning of the year, it was very difficult, because I was racing in Formula 2 and I had to adapt between the GT and the single-seaters, but I got used to it.” The covered-wheel cars proved to be slower than the single-seaters, but at the same time simpler: “I loved them. I loved racing GTs, you could travel very close together and even have small contacts. They are certainly very different and much slower, which made it more difficult to drive single-seaters.” In the future, Lawson does not rule out following Verstappen’s example and trying his hand at other disciplines: “I love driving cars, I love riding motocross bikes and doing many other things. I enjoy doing this genre outside of racing. If I had to choose a championship to race in, it would probably be the Supercars in Australia, but honestly not now.” Photo by Gerd Schifferl/SEPA.Media /Getty Images The challenge of 2026 In Lawson’s present there is only Formula 1, where Liam is playing his best season in a very complex year from a technical point of view, with the drivers asked to adapt their driving style to the new cars: “The most important aspect is energy management, trying to optimize it. It can be really important. It’s becoming less and less under our control with the way the regulations are changing, which can probably be a good thing. However, there are still ways to extract some performance from there.” The game is not only played on energy management, but also on the ability to accommodate the other characteristics of the new cars: “The cars are slower, so you can play with them more. They are simpler to drive and easier to slide, but overall they are slower.” Meanwhile, his mind is already racing towards the regulations of the next decade and Lawson has clear ideas about how he would design the next cars: “Personally I would like less power from the battery and more from the combustion engine, simply because of energy management, which makes driving more difficult for us. This year they removed a lot of downforce, just to compensate for the lack of energy. Having a bigger and more powerful battery or not having one at all would help.” Photo by Sam Bloxham/LAT Images // Getty Images Life in Formula 1 The goal in 2026 for Lawson and the Racing Bulls is to reach fifth place in the constructors’ standings, but the New Zealander urges us to keep our feet on the ground: “This year has been really positive, but we are still in the first part of the season, the road is long.” According to him, the recent results are not the result of a different approach compared to in the past: “From that point of view not much has changed. There’s nothing I’ve done that’s really different from last year. I think, however, that the team is working very well at the moment. Every weekend we learn something about the car.” Success in the coming months will also depend on the ability to manage the positive and especially the negative sides of life in Formula 1: “The best part is when you have good weekends and things go well, those are exciting moments. What can be really difficult are the not-so-good moments. When you’re in trouble, there’s a lot of pressure to do well in Formula 1, especially in Red Bull. Those can be the most difficult moments.” As the seasons passed, however, Liam learned to deal with them: “It’s something you get used to. I’ve been at Red Bull for a long time now. It was probably more difficult when I first arrived, but it’s something I’m more comfortable with now.”

Automobile Magazine – Formula1 English, News

2026-07-09 14:00:00