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Liam Lawson had admitted that the Red Bull is hard to drive, and it will be challenging for him to get to grips with it in the 2025 season.
Liam Lawson has opened up about the challenges of piloting the Red Bull Formula 1 car, describing it as both incredibly fast and demanding.
Speaking on The Pitstop Podcast, the young Kiwi delved into the nuances of driving the RB19 and RB20, highlighting the need for confidence and precision to handle the aggressive nature of the car.
“I’ve driven it. I’ve driven both RB19 and RB20 over the last couple of years. It’s very different. It’s quick but it’s hard to drive,” Lawson revealed. “It’s what I would call fronty, it’s a lot of front, like it’s very aggressive. Basically, it’s a car that takes confidence.”
Lawson explained the unique characteristics of the Red Bull car, emphasizing its sharp front end and how it affects driving dynamics. “To drive a Formula 1 car, the sort of entry speeds, what we call combined entry speed where you’re just turning in to a corner with loads of energy, lots of speed, where you’re not really slowing down before—that’s like a combined entry,” he said.
This combined entry speed is central to how modern Formula 1 cars operate, Lawson added. “Really, in Formula 1 that’s the most powerful thing about the cars; because of the downforce you can combine so much speed into the corner.”
However, the Red Bull takes this to another level. “The Red Bull, in my experience, is very aggressive in the way that it does it. You have to have confidence to be able to do it because it has a lot of front grip. If you don’t quite get it right, if you lose the rear in a Formula 1 car, you lose all your confidence basically.”
The Pitstop podcast
Lawson’s comments echo sentiments shared by former Red Bull driver Alex Albon, who spoke about the car’s challenging nature on The High Performance Podcast. Albon compared driving the Red Bull to using a cursor set to maximum sensitivity, making it difficult to maintain control.
“It’s like your cursor is on 100% sensitivity,” Albon said. “Max [Verstappen] wanted the front end to be sharper and sharper as the season progressed. The car is eye-wateringly sharp. So sharp that it makes you a little bit tense.”
High Performance podcast
When asked about Albon’s analogy, Lawson wholeheartedly agreed. “I thought that was a brilliant way to describe it honestly because that’s exactly, that’s one of the best ways you could describe it,” he said.
Expanding on the comparison, Lawson added, “If you have low sensitivity, you have a lot of control over what you’re doing. It’s not very aggressive; everything’s happening quite slowly. It’s very stable, it’s very smooth, it’s not very aggressive. But when you have high sensitivity, everything’s all over the place.
“If you try to play Call of Duty and you try to shoot someone and your cursor’s gone all over the place, you have to be really accurate with what you’re doing. And that’s what it’s like with the Red Bull—it’s very aggressive.”
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Lawson acknowledged that driving the Red Bull will be a test of his adaptability, but he remains optimistic about the challenge. When asked if the car’s characteristics would suit his driving style, Lawson replied, “We’re about to find out. I mean, I’d like to think so, I dunno.”
He elaborated on his perspective regarding driving styles and adaptability. “I don’t know if I really believe in driving styles; I think you can have a car that suits what you like out of a car. You can be a person who likes a car with a lot of front grip, a lot of entry, or you like a car that’s really stable, that’s fine. But we’re meant to be professionals, we’re meant to be able to drive what we’re given and maximise that. We’re meant to be able to adapt.”
