Liam Lawson Has a Teammate Problem

0:00What are you gonna do tonight? Let it be, what you're actually doing tonight Let it be, what you're actually doing tonight Take it away, Jordan Come on, come on, let's go Pop it down, all go out of it It's easy, take off all the lines We have a lot to do It's finally off on the road, catch it all Be a bell, bye, come on out, take it when you get it Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough

1:01It shows up in the smallest moments You bite your tongue instead of escalating You put your phone down instead of firing off that text You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most Nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life That's what growing feels like And that's exactly what growth therapy is here for Grow is therapy that works covered by insurance Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now

2:05That's growtherapy.com slash start now Growtherapy.com slash start now Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan That FACO we've started a two-point lead racing balls had over Alpine to 15 Excellent afternoon then right? Well, tell that to Liam Lawson's floor Because despite the success, racing balls broke the only public rule Alan Perman had separate drivers Don't touch each other Because after that time they touched, I just get this feeling As Colour Pinto hit Gasly, almost simultaneously, Limblad hit Lawson But we were obviously paying attention to the former And while Lawson went on to sustain damage and finish outside of the points The likes of Limblad managed to survive all of that and come home 7th place and bag 6 points And ultimately make the lives of the V-carb that little bit less uncomfortable And you might just think, oh, Arvid's committed the car of Lawson, I'll just call it a day

3:06Go down the slid, don't go straight to the pub But you would be mistaken there I think this is more interesting for the fact that well, their own team principal Alan Perman said things had gotten rather tense around the bell Jim Grand Prix and the Hungarian Grand Prix time before the summer break Yet he still wanted them to try and actually race each other fight for position And all that stuff so long as they kept it clean as long as they did not touch But then obviously we got what we got And I'm suddenly sent hurtling back to 2024 and the dive bomb around Bahrain between Sinodron and Ricardo But since that moment we had a miracle Racing bulls made it their mission to be seen as the healthier place inside Red Bull's driver system A system which wasn't exactly famous for providing young drivers with breathing space Laura Mecky's helped change that culture though before moving to the senior team And last year's lineup regularly lauded as approach Lawson going as far as stating that he helped rebuild his career into what it is today Something that actually has hope And this year Limblitz had the same room to learn at 19 without every mistake becoming a referendum on whether he belongs in Formula 1 or not

4:11So what are you trying to say here Laura? You saying that V-carbs gone soft or something? Well, not as such I think that what V-carb is doing right now is a pretty sound philosophy, a sound as a pound But in might have found its limit with these two that maybe they might have to change something Austria was the first obvious flashpoint but we talked about that quite a few times on this channel I'm not going to be boring you with the details here But as advice to say Lawson was trying to manage his tyres and he was given assurances by his team That Limblitz wouldn't attack but what did Limblitz go on to do? He went on to attack They did eventually restore the order through strategies and pickles and whatnot And Limblitz was given a talking to and Lawson chose not to escalate the problem Yeah, just say he'd be more aware next time I mean that already sounded quite barbed but you know it wasn't an absolute meltdown or anything like that And I think that phrase has come to roost around Baku because it all stems back to something that Permain has really insistive upon his drivers Something that is really beholden to the principles of Visa cash up racing bulls for me the one team

5:14And that is trust That I think sustained even more damage than what Liam received to his flaw I don't think Lawson's being naturally passive here I really think he's making a damned good effort to try and restrain himself From not just resorting to hard racing or really going at a driver in the media pen Because we all know that Liam can race other drivers hard And he can get into real dramatics especially for the likes of Fernando Amonzo and Sergio Perez historically But indeed he is actually calming himself down Cooling his jets around the likes of Arvid because well turn one around as a by John Now let's be clear here The stewards from this very document found that Limblitz wasn't wholly or predominantly responsible They viewed the collision as part of a chain reaction through congested first corner and took no further action Arvid did not take his teammate out but the stewards were more answering whether Limblitz deserved a sporting penalty or not Besides, Permain had already created a strict or internal standard He didn't say his drivers could touch provided the stewards considered a racing incident He told them not to touch each other at all

6:16That's why I find Lawson's reaction after all this pretty revealing said that he wasn't going to protest his teammate While also saying that he didn't really understand why the stewards chose not to penalise Limblad And he did exert his frustrations in the way that most F1 drivers do best by liking an Instagram post from an independent party You know the one And then he went on to say that those six points that Limblad got were good for the team As in, oh I'm happy for them, yeah And then as I saw and you probably saw Limblad went as fast as George Russell around Q3 Baku To try and give off his side of the story and to make it very clear that he has no grudges with his teammate and that everything is absolutely hunky-dory The amount of posts that Arvid has posted with him and Lawson in the picture, it's been absolutely staggering I quite frankly think he's trying a little bit too hard I mean we all saw him publicly apologising to Lawson in the media pen Even interrupting Lawson's interview with the media for the driver reactions and then he went on to apologise in public multiple times

7:17In fact it's felt like he's been apologising every day since the accident So yeah, the warmer public presentation about their partnership, it does need to be viewed very very carefully here It really reeks of overcompensating And speaking as a P.A.S.D. fan, I have seen this play out before, not long after Singapore 2025 Something that could have easily overshadowed the fact that McLaren went on to win the constructors that weekend You know what I'm talking about there as well But you know what for V-Carb, I think that's somewhat understandable trying to project that everything's absolutely fine Because they've got two very important jobs this year The first one is obviously to secure P5 in the constructors And the second one is the one that they've always been doing Developing Red Bull drivers for the future And in recent times it's been able to coexist quite fine Sonoda and Ricardo, ultimately that was fine, Lawson had ya, that was pretty amiable as well But then when you get to Limba and Lawson Hmm, I feel like the current model isn't really working to its full potential

8:17It just feels like they impose these restrictions or these principles yet they don't really follow through Because points, I do feel like these two are pulling against each other right now And Alan can also look at the fact that Harvard is this close to getting into the top 10 in the championship Taking it away from Pierre Gasley, so to have two drivers within the top half of the championship, the drivers one That's pretty good and it really does make the Red Bull driver program at large Look really impressive, but I don't think this is something that the main Red Bull driver program should be trumpeting or at least viewing that way Their relative performance, Arvid and Leons, is evident Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough It shows up in the smallest moments You bite your tongue instead of escalating You put your phone down instead of firing off that text You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for

9:19Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growthherapy.com slash start now Growtherapy.com slash start now Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan Yamabah Resort and Casino at Sandman Well brings exciting nights of music and comedy to the stage

10:19See country music superstar Miranda Lambert November 12th Don't miss inspirational singer songwriter Lauren Degel November 21st And experience the quick wit of Matt Rife December 5th and 6th Tickets on sale now at Yamabah Theatre dot com only at Yamabah Resort and Casino California's number one entertainment destination You in must be 21 to enter Every single session tells a group something important about who's worth keeping and who's worth chucking And that competitive reality became much sharper before Baku Because we all know that Lawson had just completed a very strong three race substitute stint at the senior team As I said recently 14 points in three races something that really reached a crescendo around the mothering With Lawson being able to have some really solid results to secure p6 and Mekki's calling it a very strong stint in the senior team in a car But he didn't really all know that much about or expect to be back in again and not to mention praising Liam's calmness in the situation

11:22And I think it's quite safe to say that right now those two races that Liam partook him for Red Bull in 2025 You can just chuck those in the skip at this point. They are now completely irrelevant And then we of course had Red Bull confirming that Hajar would be partnering Max Astaphan for 2027 That the Red Bull second seat curse might have finally been broken And to make that even more of a good judgment call Hajar comes back from injury, puts the car on the second row And then grabs his second podium right at the moment when we all thought well he's going to take some time to warm up Oh no no wait he's already warmed up. Oh okay. And he was even able to give Max and Jib over the radio saying at some points that he was faster and Red Bull told him not to challenge Max So you really got to look at the competitive landscape around Limblad in that light. Max is well being Max You got Liam doing a good job being a superstar and Hajar coming back from injury and putting in numbers And really helping Red Bull get McLaren the Coli Wobbles in terms of the constructors. There are only 43 points behind them You know so the easier can come online and must stop and can get more and more podiums

12:24Then you know what P3 in the constructors somehow once again could actually be Red Bulls for the taking So yes for Arvid the obvious senior seat is gone and Hajar strengthening his position And Lawson strengthened his own position as someone Red Bull could trust for just about anything In that environment Arvid could perhaps feel like he's a bit like Chopped liver. Is he desperate? You might be thinking well no But what we can say is that maybe the incentive around beating Lawson's got stronger than ever and the numbers make that even clearer Because after Baku Lawson leased their qualifying head to head 7 to 5 and their race comparison eight to four The most obvious comparison Red Bull or any team can make between two drivers And that becomes particularly intriguing when you take a look at Arvid's junior career which contains a certain kind of mistake Now before you say anything this is not a hit piece towards Arvid I am just stating what has happened Because last year in spars formula 2 weekend he was penalized for turn 1 contact after a safety car restart Then at Monza he was found holy at fault for another turn 1 collision after another safety car restart

13:29And the stuff he'd already been dinged for separate contact earlier in the weekend Earlier that year in Monaco he went after Jack Crawford down the inside without establishing the required overlap and got another penalty Now the obvious counter to this is that I'll come off it Law you're really taking Arvid's F2 career into account here That was when he was a young driver he still is a young driver and young driver's crash Well, but you're absolutely right there that's a very valid train of thought So maybe consider that when you're tearing into Franco Colapinto, okay But I think it's also quite valid to say that there is a little bit of a pattern forming here to do with restarts Whether a marginal gaps and maybe there are opportunities that Arvid goes out to see and please before you use that center quote Just don't we've heard it so many times now it's really lost all of its meaning But yeah it does look like Arvid's more than happy to accept that there is going to be risk pulling off a move That could maybe opportune him some more points and it suddenly puts Liam's complaint about the situation Into a whole new light for me Perhaps Liam was questioning what gap Limblad thought existed and another useful piece of evidence comes from Curiously enough

14:34Yuki Senoda, his old flame In the head to heads there, Limblad beat him three to nothing in quality and two to one in the rates And at one time did we see the same kind of public teammate friction? Was that tell us I hear you say? Well, it tells us that what we've seen between him and Lawson Doesn't happen with every single teammate Limblad drives beside There's something about the Kiwi which produces more friction Is it because he's closer or he's the more relevant yardstick? Maybe he and Liam understand what beating the other represents without ever saying it publicly Whatever the case racing bulls are surely seen red flag after red flag ever since Red Bull's home race And they've been waving and waving and waving really really obviously In fact, you know what? I've got it right here the red flag from Austria So yeah, this has been waving around right now but ultimately the competitive price has been worth paying because, you know, wait Points! You know, don't really matter where they finish because you know, hey, points But every single flashpoint had a competitive reason just to look the other way

15:35Just pretend that nothing bad happens So long as they scored points everything was fine So then that naturally brings us to what happened with Alpine in the very same race Those two suffering basically the same management failure on the same restart One team might hit the other while both cars were positioned to score But in that scenario Alpine lost everything And while the team has moved on from the incident and Colourpinter has accepted full responsibility The immediate reaction from the team, the audience and the team boss was positively ferocious Yet meanwhile, the car experienced essentially the same kind of internal danger but benefited from it Different you ask? Well, bad outcomes force uncomfortable conversations Well, good outcomes can postpone them Their result allowed it's very big problem to hide inside a successful afternoon I really hope that this was addressed internally and that there was a discussion between these two drivers that we were not privy to I don't mind not being privy to it, I just want it to have been had So that means we don't see this happening again and it may be causing a bigger problem

16:36So just say for example we get yet another turn one incident when both cars are outside the points anyway They don't stand to benefit from it Will the same reaction happen? Well, I hope not But again, we won't be seeing that around the Barrazian Grand Prix because Alvids had to accept an engine penalty So he will be starting from the back and Lawson very far ahead of him But this does bring up yet another example I wish to share with you and that comes from Mercedes Because we've seen Russell and Antonelli fighting each other for a much obviously bigger prize than P7 or something like that They have raced for race wins and they have made contact and Total Wolf has made it very clear that there are boundaries around that And we all know what happened around the Canadian sprint that being an absolute barnstormer for us But Total really drew the line there saying it was only just acceptable As in like he was this close to blowing his lid and destroying yet another set of headphones Or as we saw around Monza, punting out a monitor And then surely enough after an internal discussion between the sprint and the race it was night and day Georgian Kimi was still fighting each other but it was a lot more respectful

17:39It was a little bit more careful things had been managed very very cleanly They could race each other but everyone knew who was referring it Whereas with V-Cub, I'm not exactly sure who is referring it as in who is keeping an eye that Arvid and Lea are keeping the peace I mean, the main has his boundaries but they don't really seem to be enforced all that strictly or that obviously Certainly not like how Totos doing it would even flavio And as we know, very very clearly Toto has gone so far as to bench drivers if they put toes out of line for personal gain or if it comes at a detriment of the team That might be a leaf that racing balls needs to take out of Mercedes look right there They're having the freedom to race and having enforced and very obvious boundaries They are not the opposites they can live together quite harmoniously A healthy driving environment doesn't have to have the absence of consequences They just need to be clear and respected Now I'm not saying that Perman is incompetent and that he is not capable of doing all of this Because there was an instruction after Austria but what I'm trying to get at here is that it doesn't really seem to have been followed by the likes of Limblad

18:44That it just seems to have been flouted but the fact that the team has been doing so well and Alpine had an absolute clanger around Baku It meant that that was sort of pushed to the wayside for the fact that well, you know, six points What could have been meaning that we were only two points ahead of Alpine? It's now 15 points that that is objectively better And also they're not going to be penalising Limblad and Lawson knows himself He's not going to protest against his own teammate because what could with that do for the team? And you might be wondering does this have something to do with the transition from Meckys to Perman? Well, we don't know for sure whether or not Meckys would have treated Austria and Baku in the exact same way But the same basic principles of Meckys instructions have been carried on largely by Perman But maybe the difference is how they are emphasised Perman appears to trust his drivers heavily and he wants them solving races themselves Uninterested in forging a pecking order unless the team absolutely needs one That approach has helped racing balls out this year and getting to fifth in their first full year in charge But it may also be placing a disproportionate burden on the elder driver to follow through because in Austria

19:48Lawson followed the instruction but Limblad didn't. In Baku, Lawson spun and Limblad drove away After both moments Lawson refused to turn the situation into an open conflict Him absorbing more of the downside whenever this relationship crossed one of racing balls is boundaries In short, it might be up to him to keep the peace, to prove that he is not the fire starter That he is above such transgressions and that he is matured that he is moved on And perhaps he's showing us that he has understood something about the Red Bull hierarchy and the culture that Limblad hasn't learnt yet or hasn't need to learn yet That... Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough It shows up in the smallest moments, you bite your tongue instead of escalating You put your phone down instead of firing off that text You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most Nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life That's what growing feels like and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for

20:49Grow is therapy that works covered by insurance Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US Offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com That's growtherapy.com That's growtherapy.com That's growtherapy.com Start now Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan

21:50Yamabah Resort and Casino at Sandman Well brings exciting nights of music and comedy to the stage The quick wit of Matt Rife December 5th and 6th Tickets on sale now at Yamabah Theatre.com Only at Yamabah Resort and Casino, California's number one entertainment destination UN must be 21 to enter You know, what happens to drivers when Red Bull becomes really impatient with them? He knows very plainly what it's like to be promoted and then demoted And how a driver's own reputation and story can be in the control of somebody else if you're not too careful So, oh, okay, I'm dry, okay This could be an active plan of Liam's to maybe use this restraint as tactical restraint Maybe if he shows that he's the calm of force amongst an internally tense rivalry or some sort of awkward situation Then that could really put his standing in good Nick for this team or maybe another team that might be scoping out for drivers in 2028

22:55By him de-escalating and him choosing to de-escalate on camera Every single encounter between he and Limbav can not be described as mutual aggression That it's not Liam being the aggressor that is it is indeed arvoured being the aggressor as in he's like, don't look at me I'm not trying to cause trouble, you know But that in turn causes a really strange imbalance in racing balls own racing philosophy Permanent says it's up to both drivers to try and regulate themselves and manage each other on the track But it seems that it's Lawson doing all the heavy lifting and it's not Limbav at all He's just making every opportunity count because he knows it can score the team points But it is coming out the expense of his own teammate The, yeah, I think them being key-friven right now is the reason why they've not had to really confront that imbalance more directly And it certainly helps the Alpine had the same mistake before them but in even more destructive way at the same time So that created much more of a distraction and no one was really paying much mind to the Limbav lost an incident Until several minutes later when all of the replays were being had during the safety car period And then many commentators started to go, oh, look what happened there

23:57But by the time that had happened VCar probably got its story straight And by the time it got to the media pen, everything had been carefully curated Because as we saw with that leak from the No-Design papers, they have an answer for just about everything But needless to say, Baku was the biggest red flag that this team has received all year But that wasn't that much of a problem because what they had around Baku also was one of the biggest championship gains of the year The swing, a 13 point swing, that's something that any midfiel team will take with open arms But that could create a really dangerous feedback loop Because it could be telling the team principal and his underlings that what they are doing right now, their system, that it absolutely works And they don't need to change it, they don't need to confront the awkward and inconvenient truth Limblad and Lawson, they're not exactly seeing eye to eye in the same way that Lawson and Hadja did Or Sonota and Ricardo The challenge now I think is to try and preserve the environment that allowed Lawson to rebuild his own career And for Limblad to develop while making one thing unmistakable

24:58That trust works only when both drivers believe the boundaries around it are real and that there would be consequences So the next time Limblad pulls alongside Lawson, neither drivers aggression will be the most interesting thing to watch We should be indeed watching Liam and see if he gives Arvid the same space he would have given earlier in the year And whether or not he trusts an instruction if one comes over the radio I get the feeling that Liam's probably going to be having to manage both of their races to try and make sure that there is no risk whatsoever for the team Because it's certainly very clear here that Arvid is a young man who is in a very very big hurry Because with Max staying through 2030 and Hadja's cementing himself as his teammate for as long as possible Mecky's calling them the ideal pairing and then Lawson holding his own and being Red Bull's best mercenary available Where does that leave Arvid within this organisation? Because there's so lot coming up in Formula 2 And even though he's had a wobble in recent races, he is still very much destined to be in Formula 1 So if Lawson can still hold his own and be a very reliable mainstay for this team

26:02And Hadja's up there and Max is up there is Arvid the one that could be easily pushed out of the organisation Potentially, but that's the next year But I think Arvid is very aware of it this year So the best thing he can do, beat his teammate and be sorry not sorry put Liam in his place And your place is to go and watch this video over here because I know you will enjoy that one I'll go and freshen myself up and I'll be right with you Just two wheels, two pedals and you At Bikes Online we share your passion for everything cycling Whatever bike you're looking for from Mountain to Road, either pedal powered or electric We've got what you want ready for super fast delivery Quality gear at prices you won't find in your average bike shop All bikes are pro-built and tuned before shipping to get you riding quickly If you find a better deal, we'll beat it by 5% Shop now at bikesonline.com and ride more for less

27:06Thanks for listening to my ladder ramblings If you liked what you heard, do be sure to leave a five-star rating on your podcasting platform of choice I really do appreciate it and until the next time I traverse the ladder I hope you have a pleasant day Goodbye