Liam Lawson has revealed he hadn't even gotten off the plane when he received the shock news that he would be returning to Red Bull for the Dutch Grand Prix. The New Zealander had just landed in the UK from his summer break, expecting to start preparations with Racing Bulls as usual.
The call came after Isack Hadjar was ruled out with a wrist injury sustained during Formula 1's summer shutdown. Lawson, currently ninth in the drivers' championship, got the call from Racing Bulls team manager Alan Permane before he could even leave the airport.
"I literally landed, I hadn't even got off the plane," Lawson said. "I had come from basically being on break and landed in the UK for what I thought was going to be obviously VCARB prep. Alan called me and basically told me what was going on. So then my week changed pretty quickly."
This marks Lawson's second opportunity with the senior Red Bull team after a brief two-round stint at the start of the 2025 season. Now he must adapt to the RB22, which is a completely different machine, while Yuki Tsunoda takes his place at Racing Bulls.
With a sprint weekend at Zandvoort, Lawson will have just one practice session before qualifying. He acknowledges the challenge is significant but believes the experience gained since his return to Racing Bulls will be valuable.
"Everything's really different, to be honest. I'm coming in for this weekend in a unique situation to try and maximise one weekend. It's very different to being in your own car, being in your own team," Lawson said. "I've had a lot of races since then, F1 as well, so learned a huge amount. I'd like to try and take as much of that into this weekend as I can."
Lawson completed a Red Bull simulator session on Wednesday to aid his limited preparation, and he believes familiarity with the team's power unit should remove at least one unknown.
"At least the power unit is the same, so that's one thing that should hopefully help things," he said. "But the car itself is completely different, that's for sure a challenge. It's the nature of a sprint weekend having one practice session, so it's going to be a lot to build up to."
He expects Friday practice to be largely about understanding the RB22's characteristics, while also using Max Verstappen's data as a reference to speed up the process.
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