Following another difficult weekend in Shanghai, Liam Lawson has denied that the pressure induced by the Red Bull team would hinder his performance, claiming that he simply needs to raise his speed.
Liam Lawson suffered a difficult qualifying on Saturday, ending up last in a session in which he seemingly did not encounter any particular issues.
As a consequence of his struggled, Red Bull elected to carry out some tweaks to the suspension of the New Zealander’s RB21 which forced him to start in the pit lane. Although he opted for the hards to start the race on, he wound up pitting quite early. As such, he required a second stop which was the slower strategy and came home down in P15.
Lawson insisted that Red Bull elected to take risks with a new setup for the 56-lap Shanghai round, but the changes made his car even more nervous.
“It was pretty tough out there, starting from the pitlane we tried something different, and it was a gamble to try and figure out the set-up of the car. We tried to do something aggressive, and it didn’t really work, it was quite a big step but we struggled with pace, and the car felt more tricky than Melbourne.
“Our pace in the Sprint yesterday was better. It is not something you can put into words, it is a very small window with this car and if you miss it, it is very penalising. The more we drive, the more we try stuff and learn from it, unfortunately it didn’t go in the right direction today.
Assessing his performance after the opening two races in the 2025 F1 season, the New Zealander said that he needs to figure out how to extract the maximum from his car, denying that his low-key start to life at Red Bull would have been a result of pressure.
“I just need to drive this car faster. It’s nothing to do with external pressure, the Team have been extremely supportive. It is a unique track here, but we will reflect and learn from it going forward.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t really have time to get used to it, but I need to figure it out quickly. I don’t have time to test the car and get used to it, but we’re in the season already, so each race we’re losing points. That’s more or less what I mean when I don’t have time.
“But I’m also not stupid and I know that, obviously, I’m here to perform – and if I’m not doing that, I’m not going to be around. I’m just focused on getting used to the car as quickly as I can.”
