Liam Lawson has insisted that his confidence remained unshaken during his very brief tenure as a Red Bull driver. The New Zealander was promoted to partner Max Verstappen over the winter, but after only two races, he was relegated back to the sister team, Racing Bulls.
This decision followed a dismal start to the season, where the Kiwi failed to secure a single point across two race weekends in Melbourne and Shanghai. Lawson was demoted to the junior team, with the more seasoned Yuki Tsunoda stepping up to fill his spot.
However, the Japanese driver has also faced difficulties, amassing just seven points since his promotion to the premier Red Bull team, with his best Grand Prix finish being ninth place. Nonetheless, former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, who made the decision, believed it was the correct move, claiming that Lawson's confidence had been shattered by the pressure associated with the role.
He stated: "It was something that was very clear to the engineering side within the team, just how much Liam was struggling with it all. You could see that weight upon his shoulders. The engineers were coming to me very concerned about it, and at the end of the day, I think it was the logical thing to do.
"Sometimes you've got to be cruel to be kind, and I think that in this instance, this is not the end for Liam. I was very clear with him, is that it's a sample of two races. I think that we've asked too much of you too soon. We have to accept, I think we were asking too much of him too soon.
"So this is for him to, again, nurture that talent that we know that he has, back in the Racing Bulls seat, whilst giving Yuki the opportunity and looking to make use of the experience that he has. I think with everything that we saw in Australia and China, you could see that it was really affecting Liam quite badly."
Lawson's drought without points continued following his return to Racing Bulls, though he has since regained his form. His sixth-place result in Austria at the conclusion of June marked his finest performance in F1 and enabled him to overtake Tsunoda in the championship table.
In a fresh interview, the New Zealander revealed he felt he wasn't afforded sufficient time to prove himself at Red Bull, and rejected any notion that his self-belief had been damaged by the experience. "Between the first couple of races, to the team switch, then going to Japan, mentally for me nothing changed," he said.
"It's been very heavily speculated that my confidence took a hit and stuff like this, which is completely false. From the start of the year, I felt the same as I always have.
"I think in two races, on tracks I'd never been to, it's not really enough. Maybe six months into a season, if I'm still at that level, if the results are still like that, then I'd be feeling something - maybe my confidence would be taking a hit.
"I was well aware that those results weren't good enough, but I was just focused on improving, fixing and learning, basically. I was in the same mindset as I have been since I came into F1. I think that was the biggest thing going into a team like that, in a car like that... It was going to take a bit of time to adjust and learn.
"With no proper testing, the issues in testing, the issues in Melbourne through practice - it wasn't smooth and clean. I needed time, and I wasn't given it. I haven't really talked much about it, because I think for a big part of this year, I've just ignored everything that happened and I've just focused on trying to drive the car.
"But I know there was a lot of stuff that went out that was speculation about how I was feeling. My confidence hasn't changed since the start of the year to now."
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