Liam Lawson addresses Red Bull 'tension' after Christian Horner exit

Liam Lawson has stated he did not notice any “tension” between Christian Horner and other Red Bull staff during his stint with the team.

Lawson was called up to replace Sergio Perez at the Milton Keynes-based squad this year despite having just 11 grand prix starts to his name.

The New Zealander struggled for performance across the opening two rounds and was swiftly demoted back to Racing Bulls in favour of Yuki Tsunoda.

Another major change occurred at Red Bull in the following months, with Horner shown the exit door after 20 years running the day-to-day operations at the squad.

It came as Red Bull struggled for form on the track and several months after Jos Verstappen, father of Red Bull driver Max, warned Horner was not the right figure to lead the team going forward.

When asked if he saw any tension within the team during his stay with the squad, Lawson told media including RacingNews365 “No, I don’t think so. It’s not something [I noticed].

“If I was trying to be very aware of everybody’s position, then maybe I would figure something out.

“But I had so much to think about myself.

“I only know what the decisions were with what happened with me and I made that very clear to everybody how I felt about that.

“Anything else regarding Red Bull’s relationship I wasn’t a part of and wasn’t really aware.”

Laurent Mekies replaced Horner at Red Bull, with the former stepping up after 18 months in charge at the sister team.

When asked to contrast the leadership styles of Mekies and Horner, Lawson insisted he did not get enough of a sample of Horner's methods to make a comparison.

“I was at Red Bull for two races, so I didn't really work much with Red Bull,” he said.

“It's hard to say in two races. Honestly, I spent most of my time working with Laurent.”