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Red Bull identifies ‘detrimental’ scenario Liam Lawson must avoid

Red Bull identifies ‘detrimental’ scenario Liam Lawson must avoid

Max Verstappen’s relentlessness tests the “inner strength” of his teammates, says Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan.

Verstappen will have a new teammate at Red Bull in F1 2025, with New Zealand driver Liam Lawson promoted to Sergio Perez’s empty cockpit after 11 race weekends with the AlphaTauri/VCARB team over the past two seasons.

Paul Monaghan issues ‘be prepared’ warning

Pérez had a very difficult 2024 season alongside Verstappen, scoring just over a third of the points the Dutch driver achieved. While Verstappen claimed a fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship, Perez’s inability to regularly score points cost Red Bull any chance of defending its Constructors’ Championship, as the Milton Keynes-based team fell to third place behind McLaren and Ferrari.

Red Bull opted for a change for this season, with the inexperienced Lawson brought in after comparing favorably to the much more experienced Yuki Tsunoda during their 11 races together in 2023 and 2024.

A key facet of Lawson’s personality is that he harbors great self-confidence and mental toughness which serves him well when lining up alongside Verstappen in the same car.

Not every driver can handle being team-mates with the Dutch driver, with the likes of Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly weakening alongside him in 2019 and 2020 before Perez got the nod, only to endure his own sustained decline in 2024. after inconsistent years in ’22 and ’23.

Paul Monaghan has been with red bull for almost 20 years and has witnessed Verstappen’s rise within the team and the effect he has had on the drivers who accompany him.

Talking to him Beyond the network On the podcast, Monaghan shared advice for anyone who becomes Verstappen’s teammate, urging that driver to be able to keep his head in the face of sustained pressure.

Asked if better performances can be achieved by simply accepting how good Verstappen, Fernando Alonso or Michael Schumacher are, and whether that acceptance requires the driver to adopt a different mentality in that partnership, Monaghan said: “If it helps you, take the getting the most out of yourself, then intuitively it makes sense, right?

“If they are constantly worried about a comparison with a team-mate or what their team-mate is doing, and they fail to get the best out of themselves and their car with their engineers, then yes, it has been a disservice.”

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Since Verstappen rarely has a bad day behind the wheel, Monaghan said any teammate of the Dutch driver must be mentally prepared to handle that.

“What you have to be prepared for is… it’s true, in my opinion, for both Max and Fernando in this relentless pursuit of the best they can be,” he said.

“That is, every day, every session, every lap; Even if you miss a session, they come back the next and are there.

“You have to be prepared for that. They don’t have a bad day, nor a bad session.

“Well, sometimes they do, but they don’t admit it, that’s okay.

“If you are prepared for it and can endure it, then it is a bit like Kipling’s poem Ifisn’t it?

“That has to do with the inner strength of the teammate, he has to give his best. And then he has to endure the trial.”

With Perez apparently unable to keep his nerve after the relentless beating he received almost always behind his teammate, Monaghan said the difference between the two was minimal.

“I wouldn’t want to be rude to Checo (Pérez), but I would say that, in general, Max is a little faster than Checo,” he said.

“For me, that is not a controversial statement, (although) Checo may be very angry with me. Half a second, on average.

“Most circuits have, pick a number, 20 corners, because that makes the math easier, right? Look at that as an increase per corner. The difference per corner is minimal: maybe half a tenth in one corner. It borders on trivial, right?

“However, it adds up over the course of a lap. Max gets to the limit and stays a little closer to it, and doesn’t overtake it massively in the rankings when you accelerate too much.

“If that’s the difference, then the average comes out as a number at the end; If that is the objective measurement, so be it. I think maybe there’s something else, but it’s pretty good, right?

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