Horner denies Red Bull have given Lawson F1 2025 seat guarantee

Despite impressing as a stand-in for the injured Daniel Ricciardo over the past three races, Lawson has not been rewarded with a full-time seat for 2024, with AlphaTauri retaining Ricciardo alongside Yuki Tsunoda. 

Instead, Lawson is expected to spend a year on the sidelines as Red Bull’s reserve driver. 

There had been reports that Red Bull had promised the 21-year-old New Zealander a seat at either the senior team, or sister outfit AlphaTauri, for 2025, but that has been rejected by Horner. 

"There is no guarantees of anything in life,” the Red Bull team principal told Sky Sports News. “He’s done a great job; he's really impressed us.

"He's done exactly what we could have asked for in terms of grabbing the opportunity in Daniel's absence to really show his capability. That's turned some heads and it's done him a lot of good.

"We'll keep developing him when he goes back into that test and reserve role and he'll be a candidate certainly for 2025.”

Lawson looks set to continue deputising for Ricciardo at next weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix.

Providing an update on Ricciardo’s recovery from the broken hand he sustained at Zandvoort, Horner admitted it is “less likely than likely” that the Australian would return to action in Qatar. 

"His recuperation is going well but he's fixed in the seat for next year, does he need to rush a hasty return for Qatar where maybe another couple of weeks for Austin, which is a hell of a bumpy circuit anyway, it might be better to use that time in preparation for Austin,” Horner added. 

"I know he's got his sights fixed on Qatar, he'll drive the simulator next week and then we'll make some decisions based on that."