Red Bull casts judgement on Liam Lawson’s F1 super-sub showing at Dutch GP

Red Bull Formula 1 boss Laurent Mekies has praised Liam Lawson’s performance on his stand-in outing for the team at the Dutch Grand Prix. 

Lawson was parachuted into Red Bull as a last-minute replacement for Isack Hadjar, who was ruled out of the Zandvoort weekend after injuring his wrist during the F1 summer break. 

Despite being thrown in at the deep end up against Max Verstappen at the four-time world champion’s home race, Lawson adapted well as he qualified just a tenth behind his team-mate in eighth. 

After Verstappen suffered a huge crash on the opening lap of Sunday’s grand prix, Lawson led Red Bull’s charge and finished best of the rest in seventh place. 

Mekies acknowledged Lawson maximised the expected result for Red Bull on a weekend it was no match for its rivals McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari. 

“It's so difficult nowadays to jump from a team to another, so I think Liam did what he could,” Mekies told Sky Sports F1. 

“He obviously did a very good job in qualifying yesterday being only a tenth away from Max, today was a bit of a race on his own.

“We are missing the reference from Max so, you know, no judgment on the pace but he took the points, he took the points of seventh place and that's probably the best he could have done today.”

Reflecting on his unexpected return to Red Bull, Lawson told Sky Sports: “Today was hard, honestly. The first lap was quite fun, but from then, honestly, we just struggled for pace to match the front guys.

“But I feel like after yesterday I knew it was going to be a hard race, we were both behind them and I feel like I did a pretty good lap yesterday, so I knew it was gonna be hard.

“Probably not that hard, like we really struggled to keep up with the front teams, but I'm sure there's stuff I can learn from. I'll obviously try and have an understanding after the weekend.”

The result leaves Lawson ninth in the drivers’ championship on 49 points, five clear of Pierre Gasly.