Liam Lawson, who has come up the ranks with Red Bull, is keen to do well with them and try to match Max Verstappen’s brilliance. Off the track, the duo of Verstappen and Lawson have been quite cordial, having worked with each other at the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
Lawson’s arrival also means that the four-time world champion will be the older driver on his team for the first time in his career. Even the Kiwi driver values the same. “For me, that’s a great opportunity to learn. There’s nobody better to learn, to improve of. So that’s exciting,” he said at Red Bull’s photoshoots recently.
However, when Lawson was asked whether he would want to hang out with the Dutchman, he answered differently. Apparently, the 23-year-old was put on the spot by a tricky question.
ESPN F1 asked him who would he like to have a “night out” with: Lewis Hamilton or Verstappen. Naturally, this was a perplexing question for a driver who had just signed up with Red Bull to be Verstappen‘s teammate. But Lawson made his choice — he picked Hamilton!
The #30 driver answered after contemplating for a minute or so, perhaps thinking about the fan outrage that his answer could cause. Ever since 2021, any question or situation pitting Hamilton and Verstappen against each other has garnered a lot of passionate back and forth.
Liam Lawson has to choose between a night out with Lewis or a night in with Max pic.twitter.com/bz3hRJEhAu
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) February 20, 2025
Even the replies to ESPN’s tweet showcase the contrasting reactions of Hamilton and Verstappen’s passionate fanbases. Regardless, Lawson was firm on his choice about picking Hamilton as his night-out partner, probably to keep his work dynamic with Verstappen separate from his off-track life.
Nevertheless, the Dutchman would not mind much about Lawson’s answer to such a trivial question.
Lawson chose Messi over Ronaldo, and golf over padel
Besides the Hamilton-Verstappen question, there were multiple other ‘This or That’ questions posed to Lawson. Firstly, there was the iconic soccer question around Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The New Zealander, without any hesitation, picked Messi, which could be the popular choice.
Moving ahead, when the interviewer asked him whether he would like to play golf or padel, Lawson surprisingly chose golf. Now, padel has become quite a popular off-track activity for many drivers on the grid, including Verstappen.
However, there are several golf enthusiasts too, including the likes of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. So, Lawson isn’t exactly an outlier on this front.
When asked to choose between the World Drivers’ Championship and the World Constructors’ Championship, Lawson again firmly picked the Drivers’ Championship. While he is keen to ensure Red Bull wins the Constructors’ title in 2025 after finishing third last year, he would be raring to challenge for the drivers’ title if he can.
As things stand, there is a lot of uncertainty about Lawson’s caliber relative to Verstappen. Many feel that he could suffer the fate of Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, who also struggled to match the Dutchman’s pace. However, there is some optimism in the air that the Kiwi driver could shut down his critics by being the dark horse of the 2025 season.
