Liam Lawson has opened up about the challenges he faced following his demotion from Red Bull to Racing Bulls last year, how he is still willing to take risks, and the roles his former race engineers Pierre Hamelin and Ernesto Desiderio and current Team Principal Alan Permane have played in his F1 career so far.
Following his part-time stints with the Faenza-based team in 2023 and 2024, Lawson replaced the outgoing Sergio Pérez and secured the highly coveted second seat at Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen at the start of the 2025 F1 campaign.
Unfortunately, the young Kiwi failed to score any points in the first two rounds, and Red Bull axed him to promote Yuki Tsunoda ahead of the 2025 Japanese GP.
Nonetheless, Lawson has found his feet at Racing Bulls, and he now sits 10th in the Drivers’ Championship standings with five points-scoring finishes out of the seven rounds so far in the 2026 F1 season.
Lawson explains why Hamelin was the perfect race engineer for his early days in F1
Speaking on the High Performance podcast recently, Liam Lawson reflected on the contribution of Pierre Hamelin to his early F1 career and why making certain adjustments following his demotion to Racing Bulls last year was difficult.
Referring to his temporary stints with the team in 2023 and 2024, the 24-year-old revealed how he had become accustomed to working with a particular side of the Racing Bulls garage and Hamelin, who currently serves as Arvid Lindblad’s race engineer. He explained that the Frenchman’s experience had allowed him to adapt to the technical world of F1 with relative ease.
Additionally, Lawson pointed out how he no longer had the opportunity to work with the familiar figure last season since Hamelin was already appointed as Isack Hadjar’s race engineer at the time.
“There’s last year, the start of the season when I went back to VCARB was very hard.
“And basically, when I’d been with VCARB both times before this, I’d raced with one side of the garage. And I worked with Pierre [Hamelin], who’s with Arvid [Lindblad] now.
“For me coming into F1, I think he was like perfect; he’s so experienced. And for me, he was like the perfect engineer to work with, to learn about Formula One, learn coming in.
“But when the switch happened, the way it worked out, Isack [Hadjar] was working with him at that point.”
Lawson claims his former Racing Bulls race engineer Desiderio saved his F1 career
Liam Lawson also elaborated on how he had to build up his rapport with a whole new crew, including new race engineer Ernesto Desiderio, upon his return to Racing Bulls ahead of the third round of the 2025 F1 campaign.
Although the Faenza-based outfit has paired Lawson with race engineer Alexandre Iliopoulos this season, the New Zealander, in a candid confession, proclaimed that Desiderio had salvaged his F1 career.
“So, I went to the other side of the garage and worked with a totally new crew and started working with Ernie [Ernesto Desiderio], who’s in a different role this year. But he was my engineer last year, Ernesto.
“And I will always, no matter, you know, however my F1 career pans out, I’ll always reflect on him as being somebody that honestly, I don’t know if saved is the right word, but kind of saved my, you know, Formula 1 career.”
Radical approach
Drawing attention to how difficult it was to adapt to the VCARB 02 after driving the RB21 for the first two rounds of the 2025 F1 season, Liam Lawson declared that Desiderio had come up with radical yet makeshift solutions to help him regain his confidence in the car.
“He made a big impact last year because I was struggling with how it was to drive last year, because there’s always little things that drivers like out of a car.
“And especially after driving a Red Bull, going back to VCARB, they are so different. Despite what people think, they are so different. And I was really struggling with it.
“And we basically ended up doing something. He had an idea to do something that was a very, what you would argue is a makeshift sort of fix especially for F1 with how high level it is. We did something that was, I think 90% of engineers just wouldn’t really do or not think to do, because it’s just a different thing to do.”
Lawson on the specific changes that helped him turn his 2025 F1 season around
Reflecting on the adjustments Desiderio had made, Liam Lawson stated that he tested the solutions on the simulator and found them rather satisfactory. He further mentioned that specific tweaks to the front suspension and the steering system had made his car’s front end more responsive.
Moreover, Lawson disclosed that they had first implemented Desiderio’s measures at the 2025 Austrian GP and acknowledged the Italian’s massive role in him turning his challenging F1 season around and scoring 38 points in the end.
“But he had an idea to do it. We tested it and we tried it. And I basically drove it in the sim and I was like, what is this? Because this is so nice.
“It was just the way the front suspension would work and the way the steering would work for me. I like more front end, but it’s the response and like how… Super responsive, how fast, especially how fast that, you know, that rack is and how it feels.
“And that’s something that basically he put on the car. We ran it in Austria and I went from no points to qualifying six, finishing six; season just turned around right there. And then we started, we started scoring. So, he is somebody that played a really big role in that.”
Why Lawson was not mistrustful
In terms of his open-mindedness and willingness to trust people in spite of his harsh axing by Red Bull, Liam Lawson responded that mistrust was not a feeling that had crept into his thoughts. At the same time, he clarified that he was open to extreme approaches since his campaign was going awry at the time.
Reiterating how comfortable he had felt driving the VCARB 02 on the simulator after implementing Desiderio’s solutions, Lawson revealed that he was genuinely confident and excited to hit the Red Bull Ring for the eleventh round of the 2025 F1 season.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s true. I probably didn’t think about it too much. I didn’t think that because of what had happened, I don’t remember thinking maybe I shouldn’t trust this.
“But that point of the season was not working, you know, and I needed to do something. So, I was very much open to ‘this could work’.
“And also, I’d driven it in the simulator and honestly, I’d driven it and known this straight away as well. I felt so much more comfortable to a car that I’d driven so many times that for me, I was like, ‘if this feels this comfortable after three laps, not even that, it was after three corners, [the experimentation must be working]’. I remember just driving it and being like, ‘this is just so much more comfortable’.
“So, I actually knew; I was really excited. I wasn’t even nervous to try it. We went to Austria and I was like, ‘I’m so excited to get to drive, you know, this’.”
What makes Lawson willing to take risks
With regard to him channelling the courage to attempt a Hail Mary pass in F1 and catch flak when a risky experimentation fails, Liam Lawson commented that he is inclined to take a chance on an outside-the-box solution as long as he has confidence in the process.
“I mean, I probably sound more open to do sort of stuff that’s a bit more left field when trying stuff with the car and stuff like this.
“And even now in weekends, you know, doing something that is probably a little bit extreme. But if I have confidence in it, then I’ll.”
Lawson talks about unique relationship with Racing Bulls Team Principal Permane
Apart from the contributions of his former race engineers, Liam Lawson also shed more light on how beneficial it is to have their former Racing Director as the current Team Principal of Racing Bulls.
Touching on the in-depth conversations he has had with Alan Permane about both technical and personal topics since 2023, Lawson maintained that the unique relationship the Racing Bulls F1 drivers share with the Brit hasn’t changed despite him assuming the role of Team Principal in July last year.
“And then obviously with Alan [Permane], I think the difference is we work so closely with engineers and Alan obviously was, you know, sort of chief engineer when he was in the team.
“When I was coming into Formula One, that was his role. So, I already had so many technical conversations and engineering conversations and, you know, car and driver conversations that you would normally have with an engineer with him. So, when he got that, when he basically went to Team Principal, nothing really changed on that side.
“We still have these, that really close relationship and talk about stuff on a personal side, on a car side, what works for us. And I think that honestly has been something that has been quite cool, in a different way that most probably Team Principals don’t have.”
