Liam Lawson has maintained that his self-belief stayed intact throughout his extremely short spell as a Red Bull driver. The New Zealand racer got the nod to team up with Max Verstappen during the off-season, but following just two races, he found himself back with the sister squad, Racing Bulls.

The move came after a catastrophic opening to the campaign, where the Kiwi couldn’t manage a single point over two race weekends in Melbourne and Shanghai. Lawson was sent back to the junior outfit, with veteran Yuki Tsunoda getting the call-up to take his place.

Yet the Japanese pilot has encountered his own struggles, collecting merely seven points since his elevation to the main Red Bull squad, with his top Grand Prix result being ninth position. Still, ex-Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who pulled the trigger on the switch, felt it was the right call, asserting that Lawson’s self-assurance had crumbled under the weight of expectation tied to the position.

He said: “It was something that was very clear to the engineering side within the team, just how much Liam was struggling with it all. You could see that weight upon his shoulders. The engineers were coming to me very concerned about it, and at the end of the day, I think it was the logical thing to do.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be cruel to be kind, and I think that in this instance, this is not the end for Liam. I was very clear with him, is that it’s a sample of two races. I think that we’ve asked too much of you too soon. We have to accept, I think we were asking too much of him too soon.

“So this is for him to, again, nurture that talent that we know that he has, back in the Racing Bulls seat, whilst giving Yuki the opportunity and looking to make use of the experience that he has. I think with everything that we saw in Australia and China, you could see that it was really affecting Liam quite badly.”

Lawson’s pointless streak persisted after his demotion back to Racing Bulls, although he has since rediscovered his pace. His sixth-place finish in Austria at the end of June represented his best F1 showing and allowed him to leapfrog Tsunoda in the drivers’ standings.

Speaking in a recent interview, the New Zealander disclosed he felt he wasn’t given adequate opportunity to demonstrate his worth at Red Bull, and dismissed suggestions that his confidence had been shaken by the ordeal. “Between the first couple of races, to the team switch, then going to Japan, mentally for me nothing changed,” he said.

“It’s been widely reported that my confidence took a knock and things like this, which is completely untrue. From the beginning of the year, I felt identical to how I always have.

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“I think in two races, on tracks I’d never been to, it’s not really enough. Maybe six months into a season, if I’m still at that level, if the results are still like that, then I’d be feeling something – maybe my confidence would be taking a hit.

“I was well aware that those results weren’t good enough, but I was just focused on improving, fixing and learning, basically. I was in the same mindset as I have been since I came into F1. I think that was the biggest thing going into a team like that, in a car like that… It was going to take a bit of time to adjust and learn.

“With no proper testing, the issues in testing, the issues in Melbourne through practice – it wasn’t smooth and clean. I needed time, and I wasn’t given it. I haven’t really talked much about it, because I think for a big part of this year, I’ve just ignored everything that happened and I’ve just focused on trying to drive the car.

“But I know there was a lot of stuff that went out that was speculation about how I was feeling. My confidence hasn’t changed since the start of the year to now.”