Liam Lawson reveals 'supportive' Max Verstappen conversation after Red Bull demotion

Liam Lawson has revealed the support he received from Max Verstappen following his surprise demotion from Red Bull in 2025.

The New Zealander stepped up to the senior team from Racing Bulls to replace Sergio Perez, but lost the seat after just two race weekends in Australia and China. 

At the time, Verstappen himself signalled his discontent with that decision, as Lawson detailed his relationship with the four-time champion - and how he supported Lawson in the aftermath of his demotion. 

"In general, Max was just always very real, like he's somebody that at such a high-level, accomplished position that he's in, it'd be very easy for him to not be like that," Lawson told the High Performance podcast.

"And it's not just with me; he seems to be like that with everybody. And I think Max is somebody who just wants to race cars and loves to talk about cars, loves to talk about racing.

"When I came in, I noticed he would always make an effort to, like, just acknowledge me and say hi and stuff like this, and when I first was a reserve, he knew I was racing F2 and said he'd come and ask me about it, 'How's F2 going? How's the car? What do you know? How's everything feeling?'

"I remember at the time it was just really cool, and he's always been very real like that. So, and then when I went to Red Bull through all of it, he was very supportive. I won't go too much into detail about it, but he was very supportive, very, very supportive.

"I spoke to a lot of people during that time, but I spoke to him about it, basically, and he was, he was very supportive."