Alan Permane has spoken about how Liam Lawson “wasn’t the same” when he returned to Racing Bulls following his demotion from Red Bull, explaining that it took time for the New Zealander to regain his confidence.
After impressing as a super sub for Racing Bulls’ Daniel Ricciardo in 2023, Lawson replaced the Australian for the final six rounds of the following season and was ultimately promoted to partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull for 2025.
However, he suffered a dismal opening two rounds that saw him crash in Australia and qualify last for both the Sprint and Grand Prix in China, leading to the rapid decision to send him back to Racing Bulls.
Lawson admitted at the time that he was “surprised” by how soon the call had been made, and he ended up finishing 14th in the Drivers’ Championship, 13 points adrift of his then-rookie team mate Isack Hadjar.
Asked on the latest episode of Beyond The Grid how Lawson seemed when he arrived for his first race back at the sister team, Permane said: “He didn’t really say much about it to start with, honestly, his head was down and he won’t thank me for saying this, because I think at the time, he was, ‘no, everything’s fine’, but you could tell.
“We obviously knew him from the year before, we could tell he certainly wasn’t the same guy, and I don’t want to say we rebuilt him because that’s a little bit dramatic, but we just supported and helped him where we could. He works incredibly hard and he works incredibly well with his engineering team, and he did it.
“We’re there to help him, but he made a turnaround. He worked hard in the simulator, he worked hard off track and on track, and I think we saw that culminating with some really, really good performances.
“What I said to him last year was, ‘forget anything outside of this’, especially after we confirmed him for 2026. I said, ‘there’s nothing that should be more important than this, don’t worry about this flight or that flight, or this hotel, or you want to go here’, I said ‘forget all that and just focus on this’.
“You can see that with him this year, he’s definitely done that. He’s laser-focused, it’s a bit of a cliché, but he is and I’m really pleased that you can see that in his driving. He’s much more aware of the car, I think he works better and closer with his engineers, he knows what he wants from the car, he’s able to drive it in a way to get the best out of the car.”
Driving alongside another rookie this season in Arvid Lindblad, Lawson has embraced his role as the more experienced driver and contributed to Racing Bulls’ tense midfield battle with Alpine, which has the teams enter the Hungarian Grand Prix level on 61 points.
The 24-year-old has scored 39 of those – already exceeding his total from 2025 – and contributed to consecutive double points finishes for the team in Monaco, Barcelona, Austria and Great Britain.
Permane praised the way in which Lawson has hit the ground running this season, adding: “It’s something I’ve often said, people talk about driving style and ‘this driver has a particular style, or that driver has a particular style’. I think the very best drivers, they don’t have a style.
“I don’t think Fernando [Alonso] has a driving style, I don’t think Max [Verstappen] has a driving style. I think they just drive the car however it needs to be driven to go quickest, and I think you very much saw that with Max in the previous eras, with the ground effect, and you had to have a car with a massively stiff rear end to get the best out of it and other drivers couldn’t necessarily cope with that.
“I think Liam is doing a little bit of that this year, he’s figuring out how to drive these cars, what’s the best way to get everything out of this car, and he’s doing that, and I think he’s able to do that because he’s just concentrating on driving, and he’s not worrying too much about the outside world.”
To listen to this week’s episode of Beyond The Grid, simply hit go on the audio player above or click here to listen via your preferred podcasting platform.
You can also check out a huge selection of previous episodes – spanning every decade of F1 – in our dedicated Beyond The Grid library here.
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