New Red Bull driver Liam Lawson has insisted he was not "trying to set an example" with his hard racing during his six-round campaign in Formula 1 last year.
The Kiwi replaced Daniel Ricciardo at RB [now known as Racing Bulls] ahead of the last two triple-headers of the 2024 season, as Red Bull was keen to evaluate him with a view to promoting him to the main team – and eventually did so.
In his first two grands prix back since his F1 debut in 2023 – then also standing in for Ricciardo, who had fractured his hand – Lawson made waves with his uncompromising racing, drawing the ire of Fernando Alonso at the Circuit of the Americas and Sergio Perez in Mexico.
Both veterans felt Lawson was driving too aggressively, particularly with his robust defensive moves. Alonso called the youngster an "idiot" over team radio while Perez told media that Lawson needed to be "more humble".
Nevertheless, the RB driver was not disciplined by the stewards.
Asked by Motorsport.com in an end-of-season interview whether he was striving to lay down markers and show he is no pushover, Lawson replied: "No, it's not like… I'm not trying to set an example or anything like that.
"I feel like I'm racing everybody the same way, I'm not racing anybody any differently.
"I have a very short window here at the moment, so it's very important [to prove myself], but I'm not trying to set an example, or set, like, a – I don't know what the word is. Prove a point? I'm not really trying to do that, no."
Lawson took ninth place on his F1 return at the United States Grand Prix, following his elbows-out battles with Alonso.
"There's a bit of relief with that," the New Zealander admitted. "Obviously we all have self-belief, we all believe in our ability, but when you haven't driven for a long time, it's hard to know exactly where you're going to be. As much as you expect or you want to deliver, you just don't know until you're driving the car.
"It was good to start like that, and obviously from there it gave me good confidence going forward."
Speaking before he was announced as Max Verstappen's team-mate for the 2025 season, Lawson described his interim performance as "a couple of strong races and a couple of not strong races" and vowed to learn from the mistakes made in the latter.
