Mekies hails Lawson's 'very strong' Red Bull return after Madrid P6

Mekies praises Lawson’s very strong Red Bull stint

Red Bull Team Principal Laurent Mekies was full of praise for stand-in driver Liam Lawson after the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, saying the New Zealander has delivered a “very strong” stint back with the senior squad.

Lawson is standing in for the injured Isack Hadjar across the last three race weekends. The 24-year-old’s promotion back to Red Bull, albeit on a temporary basis, has offered a chance of redemption after he managed just two race weekends for the team at the start of the 2025 season before being sent back to Racing Bulls.

His latest stint has been much more positive. He finished seventh on his first outing in Zandvoort and backed that up with a solid sixth last weekend in Madrid.

“I think he's done a very good job,” Mekies said. “I think we all know how difficult it is to jump to a different team, to a different car, and I think that he has done that to the best of what could have been our expectations.”

“He has taken some very important points today with the P6. He did the same in Zandvoort and in Monza he would have done something similar without the contact with Nico Hulkenberg and the front wing damage.”

Mekies added that the performance was “again very different pictures compared to the first two races of 2025 when he was in the team so we are thankful and happy with that.”

From early struggles to points-scoring consistency

During his brief stint with Red Bull at the start of 2025, Lawson qualified 18th and 20th in his two qualifying sessions and was also 20th on the grid for the first Sprint of the season. He failed to score in either Australia or China, in stark contrast to team mate Max Verstappen who finished those races second and fourth.

His second Red Bull stint has been far more productive. He has qualified eighth twice in the two race weekends where his performance was unhampered by grid penalties – Lawson was forced to take a grid drop at Monza as his car needed a raft of new power unit components, which hindered his race performance.

Having finished seventh and sixth in Zandvoort and Madrid, he has added to the team’s points tally and has also been respectable in terms of pace difference to Verstappen.

Jumping into the car at a Sprint weekend while also having to drive the RB22 at a new track made the timing less than ideal, but a year and a half’s worth of added experience seems to have paid off.

“I think he has continued to grow as a driver and he's very calm in the car, he is very focused,” Mekies added. “He's certainly making - I don't know if he makes an effort or not - but he's certainly managed to keep things simple in the way he interacts with the team and in the way he tackles his own performance and the car performance.”

“So, he's focused on the essentials. He tries to get the basic rights and it's working for him, of course with more time in the car, you can then get to another degree of finesse, maybe. But I think that approach is very, very strong.”

Whether Lawson gets a fourth go at Red Bull remains to be seen, with Hadjar still recovering from the wrist injury he sustained in the summer break.