Revealed: Liam Lawson’s 2025 F1 race engineer at Red Bull

Liam Lawson’s race engineer for his debut F1 season with Red Bull has been named.

Richard Wood will be the voice in the ear of Lawson for his first campaign racing for the Red Bull senior team in 2025.

Wood was Sergio Perez’s former performance engineer. He has already gained experience in the role, having filled in for Perez’s regular race engineer, Hugh Bird, when he was on paternity leave last year.

Lawson has been promoted to Red Bull after contesting 11 grands prix spread over two seasons for sister team Racing Bulls. He got the nod over former teammate Yuki Tsunoda. 

The 22-year-old New Zealander was picked by Red Bull to replace Perez following the Mexican’s dire 2024 campaign.

Red Bull slipped to third place in the constructors’ championship - largely due to Perez underperforming alongside Max Verstappen, who claimed his fourth successive drivers’ title.

Gianpiero Lambiase will remain Verstappen’s race engineer alongside taking up a larger role as head of racing.

That is part of Red Bull’s internal restructure in the wake of Jonathan Wheatley’s departure as sporting director.

Wheatley, who has left to become team principal of Sauber for 2025 from 1 April, will not be directly replaced by Red Bull.

Red Bull not putting pressure on Lawson

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has stressed the importance of not putting too much pressure on Lawson ahead of his first season with the team.

Horner said Red Bull will ease Lawson in “quite gently” as he faces the daunting task of going up against four-time world champion Verstappen.

“We’ve tried very hard not to put pressure on him so far and he’s basically easing his way in,” Horner said at the Autosport Awards.

“He’s in the US at the moment. He will be back in the simulator again next week. So he’s doing a decent job and we’re just trying to ease him in quite gently.”