How Liam Lawson's 2026 season saved his F1 career

Liam Lawson will remain at Racing Bulls in 2027 alongside Arvid Lindblad, ending months of speculation over whether Red Bull would instead promote Formula 2 contender Nikola Tsolov. The 24-year-old New Zealander sits ninth in the championship on 89 points — the best of any driver outside the top four teams — turning a career that looked finished after his two-race Red Bull demotion in 2025 into one of the season's more compelling rebuilds.

Why it matters:

Red Bull weighed Lawson against a fast-rising junior for most of the year, and the delay visibly wore on him. "When something like this is pushed all the way to the end, you're left with not really any options," he admitted in Brazil. Retaining him rewards a driver who has more than doubled his previous season-best tally of 38, beaten Lindblad 89-38, scored in 15 of 20 grands prix with a single retirement, and helped Racing Bulls to 114 points in their pursuit of a first-ever fifth in the constructors' championship.

The details:

• China offered the first hint: 14th to seventh in the race, plus sprint points, for an eight-point weekend.
• Monaco was the statement — fifth from 10th on the grid at a circuit where overtaking is close to impossible, equalling his career best and fronting a double points finish.
• The Red Bull cameo carried real weight. Deputising for the injured Isack Hadjar roughly 18 months after his demotion, he took seventh at Zandvoort and sixth in Madrid from eighth on the grid, drawing praise from Laurent Mekies.
• Mexico was a test of a different kind: a practice clash with Max Verstappen, criticism from his former teammate, a one-place grid penalty, disqualification from qualifying over an MGU-K infringement and a pit-lane start. He still finished seventh on corrected classification.
• Brazil made the case loudest. Fifth in treacherous qualifying, promoted to third, he passed Lando Norris to run second early and was later promoted to seventh after Charles Leclerc's penalty — his fourth seventh place in five races.

What's next:

Tsolov stays inside the Red Bull system as 2027 reserve, so the pressure does not disappear. Lawson now has a full season to prove he deserves another shot at the senior team — or to make himself attractive to the rest of the grid.