Liam Lawson's Red Bull Race Engineer Named Amid Internal Restructuring

Liam Lawson of New Zealand and Visa Cash App RB looks on in the garage during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring on July 20, 2024 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
Liam Lawson of New Zealand and Visa Cash App RB looks on in the garage during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring on July 20, 2024 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images) / Red Bull Content Pool

Amid the internal restructuring at Red Bull following the exit of key team members such as Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley, Richard Wood has been named as Liam Lawson's new race engineer for the 2025 season.

Wood was the performance engineer in Sergio Perez's crew last year, but has performed race engineer duties during the absence of Hugh Bird since the race weekend at Zandvoort last year. Bird was Perez's race engineer.

Now though, a report by Planet F1 suggests that following Perez's exit, Bird will take on a factory role, while Wood will support Lawson in his debut Red Bull season. The Kiwi driver was being assessed alongside Yuki Tsunoda in Red Bull's junior F1 team, VCARB, in the second half of the 2024 season, in light of Perez's dwindling performance. Eventually, his skill to perform consistently under pressure helped him secure the Red Bull seat over Tsunoda.

In his first year, Red Bull's expectation of Lawson is to secure as many points as possible to assist the team in winning the Constructors' Championship. However, Perez has often remarked that it is stressful being Max Verstappen's teammate, something even former Red Bull drivers Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon have admitted.

In addition, the former drivers have also suggested that the F1 car is suited to the four-time world champion, making it challenging for some drivers to adjust to the car. Lawson, however, views his upcoming Red Bull journey as an exciting opportunity. The 22-year-old driver said:

“I don’t know what they [Gasly and Albon] felt when they were there.

“You can always look at it as an outsider and think: ‘This is what it looks like they felt.’ But I don’t know what it was like for them.

“I believe, for anybody to go up against Max, you have to be realistic and know that he’s the fastest guy on the grid right now and that you’re not going to be outqualifying the guy by half a second.

“It’s not going to be something that’s really going to be happening. For me, it’s more the opportunity that’s there to learn from the best.

“For me as a driver, to be able to go in against the guy who’s won four world championships and is well seasoned… he’s been in that car for a long time.

“That car is almost… not developed around him, but he’s been a massive part of developing that car and understands it very well.

“In terms of how to drive it, it’s all right there on paper.

“When you see all the data that he brings in, for me as a driver to be alongside that, to be able to learn from him and have all that access, I think that’s what’s exciting for me about the opportunity.”


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