Liam Lawson reveals 'cutthroat' Red Bull nature and 6am Helmut Marko calls

Liam Lawson has shed light on Red Bull’s “very cutthroat” approach to their drivers’ careers as they aspire to reach F1.

The 22-year-old New Zealander is preparing to return to the F1 grid after being drafted in to replace Daniel Ricciardo for the remaining six races of the 2024 season at Red Bull’s sister team RB.

Red Bull have gained a reputation for making brutal and controversial calls regarding their driver line-ups over the years, with Ricciardo the latest to face the axe for underperforming this season.

Last year, Nyck de Vries was sacked just 10 races into his first full-season, while Red Bull famously promoted Max Verstappen to the senior team in place of Daniil Kvyat just four rounds into the 2016 season.

During an appearance on the F1 Nation podcast ahead of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix, Lawson spoke about his experience of being under the watch of Red Bull’s ruthless motorsport advisor Helmut Marko as he progressed through the junior ranks.

“I think honestly the hardest part is when you are very young. For me it was when I was 16 and 17 years old, my first year with Red Bull,” Lawson explained.

“Going from not being with a junior team and just having my guys from New Zealand who have helped me get to where I was at that point, to then have Red Bull Racing and Dr Helmut Marko putting pressure on you.

“That was what I really struggled to deal with. To be honest, since then it’s always been like that.”

Asked what Marko would say to him, Lawson replied: “It’s normally a 6am phone call or something like that and it will be ‘you need to perform better. Next weekend if you don’t perform better you are in trouble, you need to win races’.

“It’s quite often if you haven’t had a good race, it’s ‘if this continues you won’t have a future with this team’.

“It’s very cutthroat but honestly, dealing with that, I am so thankful to have gone through that with Helmet, because to now be at this point to go into Formula 1, it’s a huge amount of pressure to step into Formula 1.

“Without having that kind of pressure from a young age, I don’t think stepping in this late in the season, and last year as well, I don’t think I would have been able to deal with it, without having gone through five years of having Helmet.”

Lawson has been given the opportunity to stake a claim for a full-time RB seat in 2025 - and potentially at Red Bull - after an impressive five-race cameo for the junior team last season, but he insists the pressure is unchanged.

“From where I sit, the pressure doesn’t really change because the expectation is the same as it’s always been. They always expect us to perform, every time we drive there’s an expectation to perform,” he said.

“There was last year when I drove and it was trying to have a shot at getting a full-time seat and now I’ve got it, I need to try and stay in a full-time seat.

“Honestly, the pressure side of it you can look at it in many different ways and maybe say that this is more pressure because they expect a similar drive to last year, or even more than last year, but because I know every time that I drive the car that they are expecting me to perform, it doesn’t change. It’s always going to be like that.”