Liam Lawson may have just competed in 11 races between 2023-24 but even in this short span of time, he believes he has learned several things. With the New Zealander now set to start his first full-time F1 season this year at Melbourne, he has looked back at a few contentious moments from the 2024 campaign to set the record straight.
One of the biggest lessons that the 23-year-old took from last season was the importance of having a cool head. In the heat of the battle, Lawson had the tendency to give in to his emotions — most infamously with Sergio Perez at the former Red Bull driver’s home race in Mexico.
After a race-long battle, Lawson passed the RB20 of Perez. But as he made the move on the #11 driver on the main straight, he seemingly showed him the middle finger.
In hindsight, the #30 driver vows to learn from such incidents.
Helmut Marko says Liam Lawson raced Checo too hard
“We are sister teams and Lawson shouldn’t drive that hard as he did”
[https://t.co/KIOJceqb0e] pic.twitter.com/C63YkTaDhS
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) October 28, 2024
“It feels like a very sensitive world, you [have] got to be careful [about] what we do. For sure there’s things that I’m going to learn from and things that I did over those five races, mistakes in the car [and] out of the car,” he explained on the GARAGE 66 podcast.
For Lawson, the incident with Perez was a steep learning experience. Since Lawson was the favorite to replace the Mexican racing ace at Red Bull, tensions were already high between him and Perez’s fanbase, who gave the Kiwi racing ace a lot of flak. This also made Lawson rethink his activity on social media.
Lawson isn’t in F1 to please everyone
The backlash that Lawson faced after his on-track tussle with the #11 driver led him to a realization about the impact of social media on a driver’s mental health. He explained that he understood the consequences of his action but is determined that he isn’t in the sport to please everyone.
“But one thing I did learn along the way was that, yeah, basically the reaction from the public is not always going to be positive. To be honest, I learned pretty quickly just to not read it. So, it goes both ways: I try not to read the negative but also not the positives,” he added.
Going into the 2025 season, the Red Bull driver will have to stick by this mantra, more than ever. He is going to face immense scrutiny this year since he will be driving for Red Bull alongside four-time champion Max Verstappen.
