Liam Lawson named as Sergio Perez’s replacement at Red Bull

Sergio Pérez and Red Bull Racing have “reached an agreement to part ways for 2025”, with Liam Lawson confirmed as his replacement to race alongside world champion Max Verstappen next year.

Lawson, 22, who joined the Red Bull Junior Programme in 2019, steps in after 11 races for the RB sister team.

“To be announced as an Oracle Red Bull Racing driver is a lifelong dream for me,” said Lawson. “This is something I’ve wanted and worked towards since I was eight years old.

“It’s been an incredible journey so far. I want to say a massive thank you to the whole team at VCARB (RB) for their support, the last six races have played a huge part in my preparation for this next step.

“I am super excited to work alongside Max and learn from a world champion. I have no doubt I will learn from his expertise. I can’t wait to get going.”

Lawson made his debut in F1 at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix in place of the injured Daniel Ricciardo and went on to compete in five races, scoring his first points in Texas.

Lawson then replaced Ricciardo on a permanent basis for the final six races of the 2024 season and impressed sufficiently to make the jump to Red Bull.

Team principal Christian Horner backed Lawson to shine, saying: “Liam’s performances over the course of his two stints with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls have demonstrated that he’s not only capable of delivering strong results but that he’s also a real racer, not afraid to mix it with the best and come out on top.

“His arrival continues the team’s long history of promoting from within the Red Bull Junior Programme and he follows in the footsteps of championship and race-winning drivers such as Sebastian Vettel and, of course, Max Verstappen.

“There’s no doubt that racing alongside Max, a four-time champion and undoubtedly one of the greatest drivers ever seen in F1, is a daunting task but I’m sure Liam can rise to that challenge and deliver some outstanding results for us next year.”

After Pérez announced on social media that he was leaving on Wednesday, Red Bull released a statement paying tribute to the Mexican for “four successful seasons together”. The Mexican remains a popular figure in the team but his departure became inevitable following a dismal 2024 campaign. The writing had been on the wall for months.

It took a while to negotiate a satisfactory parting of the ways given the 34-year-old signed a fresh contract for next year only at the start of June. Red Bull admitted at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi that that deal, intended to boost Pérez’s confidence, had not had the desired effect.

Pérez ended the season with 152 points compared with 437 for Verstappen, a deficit of 285 points.

It is expected that Pérez will stay on in a marketing/ambassadorial role, possibly earning as much as, or even more than he did as a driver, which was understood to be in the region of £10 million. He was in a strong bargaining position. A hugely marketable athlete in Latin America, the calculation will be that he can do enough show runs and sell enough cans of Red Bull to make the numbers add up.

As for whether he can find his way back to Formula One, a seat at Cadillac when the American manufacturer enters in 2026 is a possibility, but this could well be the end of his career as a driver.

Mexican is latest victim of Verstappen’s brutal brilliance

How do you solve a problem like Verstappen? It is a question Red Bull will be asking themselves once again as Pérez becomes the latest casualty of the Dutch driver’s brutal brand of brilliance.

Verstappen is simultaneously Red Bull’s greatest asset and their greatest weakness in that the four-time world champion has destroyed a succession of team-mates to such a degree that they have had to leave the team with their confidence shattered.

Pérez, who joined from Racing Point in 2021, briefly looked like being the answer. The Mexican – at one stage dubbed the “King of the Streets” by Horner (his five wins were all on street circuits) – helped to deliver Verstappen’s first drivers’ title that year, playing a key role in that wildly controversial race in Abu Dhabi.

He then helped to deliver Red Bull’s first ever one-two in the drivers’ championship in 2023. But that second place last year came in a season when Red Bull won a staggering 21 out of 22 races. Verstappen won 19 of them and Perez needed a car that dominant just to finish second. In the end, he went the same way as Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, both of whom left Red Bull feeling pretty beaten up.

Will Lawson fare any better? The Kiwi certainly does not lack confidence. Despite his relative inexperience, Lawson has been interesting to observe in his brief F1 career to date. Mouthy and spiky, as well as quick. One source close to RB said they had never known any driver with Lawson’s level of self-belief, Verstappen included.

Lawson got involved in incidents with Fernando Alonso and Franco Colapinto in Austin and Mexico, and even flipped Perez the bird at the Mexican’s home race, earning a slap on the wrists from his new team for a lack of respect.

Perez was deeply unhappy about that. “I think the way he has come to Formula One, I don’t think he has the right attitude for it,” he said at the time. “He needs to be a bit more humble.” Lawson responded by saying he was not in F1 “to make friends”.

It remains to be seen how that abrasiveness works alongside Verstappen. It probably helps that the Dutchman is an older, wiser owl now (relatively speaking). Despite the incidents he has had this year, he is not the “Mad Max” of old. And the very fact Lawson has been given the nod suggests Team Verstappen have given him their blessing, which is a start. It is rumoured that one of the reasons Carlos Sainz did not get the second Red Bull seat is because Jos Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Snr cannot stand each other – their sons having driven together at Toro Rosso.

Verstappen, though, is not in F1 to make friends either. He is all about winning and his team-mate has to keep up or he too will be shown the door. If Lawson can stay at or close to Verstappen’s pace, this partnership could produce fireworks. If not, he could be the latest collateral damage in Verstappen’s assault on the record books.