Liam Lawson’s promotion to a full-time seat with Red Bull Racing for the 2025 Formula 1 season has been met with both excitement and caution.
Former Red Bull driver Christian Klien believes the team has learned from past handling of young drivers and will offer Lawson a more supportive environment than some of his predecessors experienced.
However, Klien emphasized the immense challenge Lawson faces competing alongside four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
Lawson, 23, steps into the seat vacated by Sergio Perez, whose performance declined significantly over the past 18 months.
“For me, it was quite clear they had to change something,” Klien told The Business of Winning. “Checo just unfortunately didn’t deliver anymore.”
Despite having a more experienced junior driver in Yuki Tsunoda available, Red Bull opted for Lawson, who has only 11 Grand Prix starts under his belt.
Klien, who debuted in F1 at the age of 21, understands Red Bull’s decision.
He stressed the importance of Lawson seizing this opportunity but tempered expectations for his first season.
“The difficulty is you’re driving next to Max Verstappen,” Klien explained. “He shouldn’t go into Red Bull Racing and think ‘I can beat Max Verstappen’ because I don’t think early on in his career that’s possible. He has to be a great number two driver… learn from the best that Max Verstappen is at the moment and his time can come in the future.”
Klien hopes Red Bull will avoid repeating past mistakes with young drivers like Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon, who he feels were put under excessive pressure.
“I hope they don’t put too much pressure [on] him,” Klien said. “They made the mistake with Kvyat, with Albon, et cetera. I think they learned from it.”
He believes the team needs a reliable second driver who can consistently score points to secure the constructors’ championship.
Reflecting on his own experience at Red Bull in 2005, Klien recalled the unusual decision to share a seat with Vitantonio Liuzzi.
He revealed that Red Bull’s motorsport consultant, Helmut Marko, later admitted this was a mistake. “It made it very difficult,” Klien said. “Luckily later on I got promoted to do the rest of the season.”
