Racing Bulls warned against F1 promotion: 'Both drivers would suffer'

Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has warned Racing Bulls that it will hurt the development of its drivers in 2027 if it opts to drop Liam Lawson.

Lawson is still awaiting word on whether he will be retained by the team next year as the squad weighs up its options.

It is anticipated that Arvid Lindblad will keep his drive at the squad after a positive rookie campaign, but who will drive alongside him remains unknown.

While Lawson is a candidate, so too is Nikola Tsolov, who is currently in contention for the F2 drivers' championship.

But Hinchcliffe has stated that having such an inexperienced line-up will have a negative impact on how much both can grow within F1.

"I was a rookie in IndyCar, I had a very experienced teammate, a decade, maybe 11 years already under his belt in Oriol Servia," Hinchcliffe told the F1 Nation podcast.

"I can tell you that, having worked with younger drivers later in my career, if I had a one, two, three-year driver as my team-mate that first year, my development in my rookie season would have been nowhere near as close.

"So for sure, Lindblad has benefited from Lawson because he's driving like somebody much more experienced and with much more tenure in the series than he currently has.

"Remember, he [Lawson] still has not yet done a full season of F1 with the same team from start to finish. He's had to bounce around a little bit there.

"Putting a rookie in beside Lindblad stunts his development, and then for Tsolov, you're learning off a driver with one year of experience.

"Both drivers, I think, suffer in that situation."

Not re-signing Lawson would be 'absolute madness'

Lawson has enjoyed a strong campaign so far with Racing Bulls and is on course to finish ninth in the drivers' standings, the leading driver outside of the top four teams.

He has bagged points at 13 of the 18 rounds staged so far and impressed on his return to Red Bull in the mid-season when Isack Hadjar suffered an injury.

Hinchcliffe insisted Lawson's performances more than warrant a retention for 2027.

"It blows me away that they haven't already," he said. "We spoke to him on the post-race show on F1TV, and we posed that question to him.

"His reaction was pretty genuine. He's like, 'dude, I don't know'. You can tell, he's kind of exasperated at this point too.

"It's not one of those, 'Oh yeah, I don't know. We'll see', clearly knowing it's already a done deal.

"I genuinely don't think he's been officially told. Not re-signing him would be absolute madness.

"I joked on the show, I said, 'Well, at this point, you should hold out because if you keep scoring points like this, you can get your base salary up a little bit higher.'"