How Max Verstappen treated former F1 team-mate might surprise you

Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson — Photo: © IMAGO

Red Bull

How Max Verstappen treated former F1 team-mate might surprise you

Max Verstappen's praises have been sung by Liam Lawson

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 17 February 2026 09:14

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Former Red Bull F1 star Liam Lawson has revealed some key details about his time spent as Max Verstappen's team-mate.

Lawson was promoted up into the Red Bull seat at the start of the 2025 season, following the axing of Sergio Perez.

However, Lawson's time as a Red Bull driver lasted just two grand prix weekends, with the New Zealander being axed after struggling at the start of 2025, and he was demoted back down to Racing Bulls.

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Still a part of the Red Bull family, Lawson has rebuilt his career as an F1 driver over the last nine months, and is now set to go up against rookie Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls this year in a crucial season for him.

The 24-year-old has recently revealed some details about his time at Red Bull, and how his relationship with four-time champion Verstappen is still good despite him being axed by the team.

Talking about Verstappen, Lawson told the Gypsy Tales podcast: "He's also, so so nice as a person, he's such a nice guy. Through everything that happened last year with Red Bull, he was so good to me man.

"Before I came into the team, when I first came into the team he was super nice and you know any questions, he was just really helpful, was happy to help. And then afterwards as well, he was really good to me."

The host of the podcast was taken aback by this, and said: "I thought maybe he'd treated you like a foster dog, like 'don't get too attached to the little guy, he's gonna go back to the shelter'".

Lawson laughed and continued: "He was honestly really good. And then still, quite often he flies home and I just moved to Monaco last year and he's like 'just come with me if you ever need a ride'.

"So he's yeah, a real nice guy."

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How many team-mates has Verstappen had at Red Bull?

When Verstappen joined the Milton Keynes-based outfit back in 2016, he had a solid team-mate in Daniel Ricciardo who had been at Red Bull since 2014, and would continue to be with the team until 2018.

However, once Ricciardo opted to switch to Renault, Red Bull had some difficulty trying to find a suitable team-mate for Verstappen.

Pierre Gasly lasted less than a season, Alex Albon just over a season, before Sergio Perez was hired from outside of Red Bull's driver pool.

Perez performed well for Red Bull, claiming five grand prix victories across four full seasons, and helped the team to win the 2022 and 2023 constructors' championships.

Following his axing at the end of 2024, however, Red Bull tried both Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda, with neither driver scoring particularly well throughout the season.

In 2026, Verstappen has yet another team-mate - his seventh since joining the team in 2016 - with Isack Hadjar taking Tsunoda's place.

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Liam Lawson