Liam Lawson's Impressive First Day at Monza for Red Bull

Liam Lawson is starting to look very comfortable in Formula 1’s fast lane.

Back in a Red Bull for the second weekend running, the Kiwi treated Monza’s opening day not as an audition, but as a working session – and a productive one at that. Fourth in FP1, 12th in FP2, and a notebook full of long-run data: on paper it looks routine. In context, it’s anything but.

His first lap-time marker came early. In FP1, Lawson clocked a 1m 23.433s to go fourth-fastest, mixing it with the established front-runners around the Temple of Speed. Only Charles Leclerc, who topped the session for Ferrari with a 1m 23.00s, and two others ended the morning ahead of him.

The afternoon told a different story, by design.

Red Bull shifted focus to race preparation, and Lawson’s name slid down the timesheets, his 1m 23.660s good enough only for 12th in FP2. The number that really mattered, though, sat just to the right of his lap time: 0.283s. That was the gap to Max Verstappen, who finished ninth.

For a stand-in still learning the car, that’s close. Very close.

Lawson described the day as “productive” and “good learning”, and the way Red Bull used him backed that up. After a short run at the start of FP2 to feel out the car, the team parked him on long runs – first on the soft tyre, then on the hard – to build a clearer picture of the car’s behaviour over a stint.

It was methodical, not flashy. Exactly what a title-contending team wants from a reserve driver thrown into the deep end.

This is, after all, an unexpected run of races for the 24-year-old. He’s in the Red Bull seat again because Isack Hadjar has still not recovered from a wrist injury, ruled out of Monza earlier in the week. Lawson seized the opportunity at Zandvoort with a strong drive to seventh place, while Yuki Tsunoda moved across to cover Lawson’s usual role at Racing Bulls.

Now the pairing continues: Lawson in the senior car, Tsunoda in the sister team, Hadjar watching on.

Monza, though, poses a very different test to Zandvoort. The Dutch circuit punished mistakes in qualifying but offered little in the race. Lawson admitted he “struggled more… in the race than quali” there, and Friday in Italy was clearly about making sure that imbalance doesn’t repeat.

So Red Bull leaned into the race work. Heavy fuel. Tyre management. Traffic. The unglamorous side of a Grand Prix weekend that decides Sundays, not headlines.

One element stood out above all: the tow.

Around Monza’s long straights, catching a slipstream can be worth several tenths. Friday’s running underlined just how critical that drag effect will be in qualifying, and Lawson made it clear it won’t be left to chance. He expects Red Bull to sit down and draw up a clear plan on how to maximise it when the grid is decided.

While Lawson quietly got on with his education, the top of the order shuffled between rivals. Leclerc gave the Tifosi an early lift by topping FP1, Ferrari’s 1m 23.00s bringing a familiar roar from the grandstands. In FP2, George Russell took over, the Mercedes driver firing in a 1m 22.559s to end the day as the quickest man on track.

The headline times belonged to Ferrari and Mercedes. The intrigue sat a little further back.

Lawson’s gap to Verstappen, his composure in a car he barely knows, and his willingness to lean into the grind of long runs rather than chase glory laps all point to a driver thinking beyond one weekend. He’s not just keeping the seat warm; he’s making a case.

Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix comes in the early hours of Sunday morning (2am NZT), with the race following on Monday at 1am NZT. The stage will be louder, the stakes higher, and the margin for error smaller.

Lawson has put down a solid marker. The question now is simple: when the tow games start and the lap times drop, can he turn this “productive” Friday into something far more permanent in Red Bull’s thinking?