Are Liam Lawson’s talent and results enough to keep him on the grid in 2027?

Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson headed into the summer break with his future in Formula One beyond the 2026 season unclear, as Red Bull's top young gun Nikolay Tsolov waits in the wings. Lawson has stabilised at Red Bull's sister team this season following one of the most brutal demotions in F1 history from the brand's top team Red Bull Racing last year after just two rounds in Australia and China, following which he was shown up by rising star Isaac Hajar, going 16-6 in qualifying, 5-0 in sprint qualifying, 14-7 in races, 3-2 in sprints and 51-38 on points across 22 races spent together. So Lawson doubled down going into 2026 and with a new teammate as Hajar was promoted and replaced by young gun rookie Arvid Lindblad. Yeah very very excited obviously second season for me going in with a full off season and obviously full preparation now starting it's a good opportunity with new cars so excited to see what we have. To the summer break Lawson leads Lindblad on stats in qualifying 6-5, races 8-3 and has 20 more points. He also holds an advantage in sprints 3-1 across the board but waiting for his opportunity is Bulgarian hotshot Solov who is the F2 standings leader and Red Bull's next big thing. Solov racing for Kampos has taken six wins so far this year to nearest rival Gabriele Mini's two and has a 20-point lead with five rounds to go and Racing Bull's boss Alan Permain speaking with official podcast Beyond the Grid says he's a proper talent. We're very lucky to have an extreme talent in in F2 at the moment in Nikola Solov is doing a is doing an amazing job I think now he's leading the championship but you can see after a couple of unfortunate races at the start of the year when things didn't go his way now things have clicked. It's unlikely Lawson would survive with Lindblad Red Bull's latest star to be in line for a promotion so it's one eye on the market as he shows his worth in the Racing Bull's With F1 on its traditional summer break until the Dutch Grand Prix now is the perfect time for us to assess the grid on its performance from the first 11 races Cadillac closes out the first half of its debut season as F1's newest 11th team last in the standings with zero points to show from the gigantic effort it's made to get to the grid and deliver week in week out. F1's second American team only received final approval to join the sport in March 2025 and the learning curve was near vertical. We're excited now to you know to build the team it's starting to get real we've announced our drivers you know the car will be on track early you know early in January for a shakedown and so we can't wait to you know the the countdown clock is spinning every day and so people are working around the clock you know to make sure that this team has everything that it needs come Melbourne 2026. It secured veteran foundation drivers to push its development forward in Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas both returning to the grid after a season spent on the sidelines and both having spent significant time at world championship winning outfits alongside Top Guns. Bottas with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and Checo with Max Verstappen at Red Bull. You know I have some time off the sport and to digest it really helped me to digest everything I went through in the in the last year especially with with Red Bull and yeah I felt like I still have unfinished business in the sport I still have a lot to give. On the stats Perez has the edge over Bottas going six to five in qualifying and six to three in races. Neither has scored a point though with the Flying Fins still closest to the top 10 with 13th in China. Brakes and component reliability have been its biggest issues giving the American team something to think about for Zandvoort. Aston Martin has had a truly harrowing start to the sports new era with its initial AMR26 agreed to be one of the worst cars to ever line up on a grid. The ambitious green squad filled to the gills with the latest infrastructure and technical talent maxed out on fanfare with its launch in Saudi Arabia. But pre-season interviews told another story starting with its new managing technical partner Adrian Newey who is F1's greatest ever designer. We had a very compressive design time I joined in early March very early March we didn't get a model in the wind tunnel until late April so that gave us a very short time. Newey claimed Aston Martin had the fifth best chassis but its new works power unit from Honda was overweight, underpowered and unreliable. It also vibrated enough to threaten permanent nerve damage to its drivers hands through the opening races. To fix its problems the green squad brought just 14 upgrade parts to the first 10 events and at strategic races like the season opener in Australia, Honda's home in Japan and Monaco. It then brought to the Hungarian Grand Prix a revised AMR26. A 16-part major upgrade which dropped its car close to the 768 kilogram weight limit and gave it a significant aerodynamic reworking ensuring a B-spec car from front wing to the rear. That enabled Fernando Alonso to take Aston Martin to Q2 for the first time in 2026 but while that was a big step the two-time world champion said a bigger shift was momentum at the squad's campus. The next step is from works power unit partner Honda at the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer break where the Japanese manufacturer will debut its own upgrade. Will it enable the squad to take another step? Williams took one of the biggest falls in Formula One's regulation revamp with the British team ninth in the constructors standings following the first half of the season 11 races. It's a bitter pill to swallow given the squad's sacrifice 2025 performance for 2026 gains and instead gained weight with its FW48 initially more than 20 kilograms above the minimum limit. Williams had begun to claw back pace via scheduled updates with a major upgrade for Baku set to return it to consistent top 10 appearances but after the British Grand Prix team principal James Vowles said that it had fallen short on its development. Our rate of bringing performance to the car which is a little bit nuanced in how I mean that is not at the rate required in order for us to move forward and step one of all that is to make sure that we take time to fully understand not just what we've done in Silverstone but really what we've done across the entire season. And after Belgium Vowles had another update that had shifted its focus to next season for a chance at a stronger step forward. We've been working on those already and we're moving our team pretty much full time to next year already and the reason why is these changes are significant enough that they warrant our care and attention early to put ourselves in the right place. The changes are there because it will help with the performance a little bit. On stats Carlos Sainz has largely outclassed his teammate Alex Albon going 8-3 in qualifying and 4-0 in sprint qualifying while it's closer in the races 6-5 and also on points. Though whether Sainz can stomach more poor performance is yet to be seen with rumours the Spaniard is shopping around. Audi finally entered F1 this year four years after its initial announcement. Its race team built on the solid foundation of Swiss team Sauber for an accelerated development and power units built at its Neuberg base. It also preached humility at its fancy debut launch. It's about being aware that there will be challenges ahead of us there may be bumpy periods there may be failures but at the end it's it will be down to us to learn to never stop to continue to grow and to have the passions to grow. But less than 12 months into his role come the week before Japan and its team boss Jonathan Wheatley was gone eventually replaced by Alan McNish though as racing director. No changes in its driver lineup with veteran Nico Hülkenberg and young gun Gabriel Bortoletto who has been impressed by the squad's initial progress. I think you know it's the beginning of a journey I always say that so I don't think we are fast enough to win races yet but it impressed me in a positive way how you know we are starting already as a new brand completely doing everything from zero car and power unit and already being you know in a competitive way it's something positive. Bortoletto has been strong in just his second season going five to six against a rapid Hulk in qualifying. The Brazilian is seven to four in races and has eight more points ten to two showing his caliber. The Hulk was ninth in Hungary before the summer break for his first top 10 appearance of the 2026 season ensuring that Audi scored points for the third straight race. More is expected of the squad though its underperforming power unit won't be updated until 2027. Haas shone across 2026's opening three races with the American team punching well above its weight due to impressive drives from young gun Oliver Behrman including fifth in China. Enough to look like he's ready for a promotion to a top team even though no drives are available at this stage. It's my passion and I think that also puts you in the best state of mind and frame of mind to perform at your limit and you know I have a decent amount of self-confidence I feel like if I'm performing on a good day I feel like I can fight with any driver which is of course another very important mindset to have if you want to be successful. But Haas hasn't scored any points since Monaco with the VF26 lacking rear downforce in medium to high speed corners while its upgrades have made the car tougher to set up. Behrman has taken the lion's share of the luck though with the race stats reflecting that more than a talent imbalance Behrman is ahead of Ocon eight to three in qualifying and seven to four in races it's even in sprints two all. He has also outscored him 18 to three on points making it look like a slam dunk. Ocon has already opened up about the major challenges facing the team this year in squeezing performance out of the car. The problem is when you switch from one track to another and when you do that you basically reset and have to learn everything again which is the big problem and it is a big problem because sometimes you just push to the limit when you're arriving qualifying and you get a new problem that you didn't plan for so so that's where the difficulty is. It's all about keeping the faith at Haas. 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