Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies says it’s up to Racing Bulls whether to retain Liam Lawson or promote Nikola Tsolov to a race seat in the 2027 Formula 1 season.
Rookie Arvid Lindblad is set to get a second campaign in the world championship next year, but the identity of his team-mate has been uncertain. Formula 2 title contender Tsolov was the favourite to get the seat, but his form has dipped after six wins in the first half of the season, partly due to suboptimal qualifying performance.
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Meanwhile, Lawson has scored 89 points this season, more than twice as many as any other midfield driver. He has been unbeaten by team-mate Lindblad on merit, both in qualifying and races, over the last five rounds, collecting a whopping 30 points in that period – more than George Russell‘s 26.
In Brazil’s tricky weather conditions, the New Zealander finished seventh again, 36 seconds ahead of second-best midfielder Nico Hulkenberg.
Asked how he saw the situation and if Red Bull could justify Racing Bulls pushing out a driver who has been performing at this level, Mekies responded: “It’s a number of questions that are to be addressed to Racing Bulls once they have made their decision, so it’s a lot of ifs.
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“The Racing Bulls driver decision is down to Racing Bulls. And as much as, yes, we run a common junior programme, we are in the unique positions where, when the good guys are coming out from Racing Bulls, we obviously have the possibility to get them to be promoted to Red Bull Racing, as we have done with Max [Verstappen] and as we have done with Isack [Hadjar]. But how we get to that point is down to them in terms of the F1 stint.
“When it comes to Liam, I can only congratulate him for another very strong weekend. He has been on a fantastic run at first; he has done a very good job with us in the three races where he had to jump in, in an incredible contrast compared to his experience here a year ago, at the beginning of the year. And certainly, from that point, we all see that when you return back to Racing Bulls, he has shown on track another step again. And what he showed this weekend is the perfect representation of how strongly he is now performing.”
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Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane has hinted at wanting to retain Lawson; while former Red Bull F1 bosses Christian Horner and Helmut Marko were understood to have input in such decisions in the past, both are now gone.
Mekies therefore insists that this is no longer the case: “There is a difference between giving an opinion and having to make a call. I don’t have to make a call.”
Consequently pressed on his actual opinion on the matter, the Frenchman smilingly retorted: “I’ve just spent three minutes trying to tell that it’s a Racing Bulls decision. I’m not going to publicly vent my opinion so that it becomes a Red Bull Racing decision. No, it’s a Racing Bulls decision. They have all the data, they are very experienced.
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“Alan is a great guy, he understands racing better than most. It’s probably fair that these guys are taking their time, because from a Red Bull perspective, there is no reason to rush.”
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