Liam Lawson says he will “never forget” Christian Horner’s “Welcome to Red Bull Racing” message after securing a place in the team for the 2025 F1 season.

Red Bull announced this week that Lawson will replace Sergio Perez for the 2025 F1 season, with the New Zealand youngster moving up from the Racing Bulls youth team to become Max Verstappen’s new teammate.

Liam Lawson reveals how Christian Horner broke Red Bull’s promotion news

Red Bull’s driver restructure was completed on Friday when Racing Bulls confirmed Isack Hadjar, the French-Algerian who finished second in this year’s F2 standings, as Lawson’s successor alongside Yuki Tsunoda.

PlanetF1.com revealed ahead of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that Lawson would most likely replace Perez for next season, with the Mexican driver’s departure finally confirmed on Wednesday.

Lawson’s promotion comes despite him having only made 11 F1 appearances so far in the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

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The 22-year-old made five starts last season as a replacement for Daniel Ricciardo, who suffered a broken hand in a training accident at the Dutch Grand Prix, and achieved the Racing Bulls’ best result at that time with a ninth place finish in Singapore in 2023.

Lawson replaced Ricciardo on a full-time basis after this year’s Singapore GP and took two ninth-place finishes in six appearances in the US and Brazil.

Published in the in-house Red Bull area Talking Bull On his podcast, Lawson revealed that he learned of his promotion through a call from Horner – including a message he would “never forget,” he admitted in a separate interview.

He said: “I knew this was planned for a change.

“Obviously nothing was planned or set in stone or anything like that and everything is based on performance as always.

“They had the meeting and Christian was kind enough to send me a text just as a heads up that the meeting was good.

“And then he called me and basically told me the news. And he gave me the classic one-liner: “Welcome to Red Bull Racing.”

“It was very exciting to hear that on the phone, so it was cool.”

Lawson revealed that his father was the first person he told after landing a place at Red Bull and his father was stunned by the news.

He explained: “I called my dad.

“Obviously he had a big influence on me as an adult and was very emotional. I’ve actually never seen him like this before, which is pretty cool.

“He has been with me literally from day one and was a big part of the mentality with which I grew up and started racing and becoming a racing driver.

“He is a great person who influenced me as a child. Not that he raced, but he just made me believe as a kid that I could do anything if I believed enough and worked hard enough for it.

“I kept that up the whole time.

“I contacted him via FaceTime and said to him, ‘Dad, I’m just thinking about planning my January calendar and I’m going to go back to Europe around mid-January, towards the end of January.’

“Normally we have a test with VCARB in Imola. It was the same last year and it was planned to be the same this year.

“And I said to him: ‘I actually won’t be testing in Imola at the moment. “I will now test at Silverstone.”

“His reaction was like, ‘What are you saying?’

“So I said, ‘Basically I got the spot.’

“It was really funny because he sat on it for probably two minutes and I could tell he just didn’t really believe it. The same applies to me.

“And then, probably after a two-minute delay, he started to react and become emotional.

“It was very cool. He went and got my mother, who was in another room, and basically told the family.

“You gave a lot for me. Especially when I was younger, a lot.

“All my siblings and my parents gave a lot to make sure I could do this.”

Read more: Liam Lawson exclusive: The exciting ‘opportunity’ to be Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate