劳森2026赛季改变F1叙事：更快乐也更快
利亚姆·劳森在2026赛季变得更加快乐且速度更快，这一点在积分榜上得到了体现。
据报，伊萨克·哈贾尔因伤出战成疑，利亚姆·劳森有望在荷兰大奖赛上出人意料地重返红牛车队。
劳森能够处于这个位置，得益于他低调的赛季中打下的基础。小红牛车队认为他取得了巨大进步——正如乔恩·诺布尔本周早些时候在这篇文章中结合车队和劳森本人的见解所解释的那样。
虽然F1车手的表现往往只取决于上一场比赛，但同样正确的说法是，衡量天赋并非看一次耀眼的发挥，而是周复一周地出场并持续重现这样的表现。
稳定性为王，而在F1这样竞争激烈的舞台上做到这一点绝非易事。
这不仅需要天生的速度，还需要众多要素同时到位。从来不存在某一个触发点；而是许多小细节必须完美地同时契合。
2026年的劳森正是如此。在他意外完成F1首秀三年之后，他重返荷兰大奖赛，此时他已是四大车队之外积分榜上排名最高的车手。
由于队友Arvid Lindblad的新秀赛季表现如此抢眼，红牛青训车手Nikola Tsolov又在首个完整赛季领跑二级方程式锦标赛，Lawson不能感到太过安心。但他目前位居车手积分榜第九，仅比红牛车手哈贾尔落后一位、相差25分，在这场围绕红牛F1车队席位保障似乎永无止境的争夺中，他确实守住了自己的阵地。
自2023年顶替受伤的Daniel Ricciardo以来，这位新西兰车手的经历可谓跌宕起伏，但他坦言，目前是他在F1中最开心的时期。
然而，最令人瞩目的或许是，他如今所处的境地与仅仅12个月前相比简直天差地别——当时在转会红牛遭遇困境后，许多人已经对他判了死刑，并认为他在小红牛的日子屈指可数。
但Lawson正如他经常在赛道上展现的那样，是一个坚强、坚韧的角色，天生不会认输。他埋头苦干，倾听身边人的意见，专注于那些能让他变得更快的工作环节。
正如他的车队领队Alan Permane告诉The 比赛的："他进步巨大。我看得出他更快乐了，驾驶时也更专注。他更快了。"
对Permane来说，这种进步是显而易见的，而这正是Lawson听取了他需要改进之处的建议所带来的结果。
"我想，如果你在去年对他说'你这些地方做得不对，因此如果这样做，我们认为你可以更快'，也许他不会同意。但（今年）他同意了," 他解释道。
"他听取了我们对他说的话。这让我们之间多了一份信任，让我们的合作更加顺畅。他也许更信任我，也更信任车队了。
"当我们对他说些什么时，他知道我们完全是为他的利益着想，因为那些利益和我们自己的利益是一致的。
"如果他更快，我们所有人都更快。但我不会说这来得容易，因为他正在为此付出极其艰苦的努力，而且你可以看到这正在结出硕果。"
劳森本人并不认为他个人的转变有那么大。
"很容易让人觉得，'哦，自去年以来我迈出了重要的一步'。但老实说，其实没有那么多改变，"他告诉The 比赛。
然而，F1是一个细节决定成败的领域。他承认，由于动力单元部署策略的复杂性需要与身边的工程师进行更紧密的合作，这是努力工作特别能得到回报的一年。
"我认为每个周末你大概可以做更多的功课，以确保从动力单元中榨取全部性能。这是今年相当有成效的一点。
“我很享受与车队之间的这种工作态度。你研究得越多，就会发现越多对自己有用的细节。
“今年有好几次情况，我从赛前或某个阶段开始前发现的东西中受益，并把它变成了我们的优势。
“这类事情总是令人兴奋的——把这些与赛车本身区分开来……”
一个明显的例子出现在澳大利亚的首站比赛中。
早在墨尔本的周四勘场时，Lawson 就告诉工程师，他认为在9/10号弯等理论上可以全油门通过的弯角松开油门，有助于更多地回收能量——从而在之后获得更大的能量输出。事实证明他是对的。
众所周知，Lawson 并不喜欢2026年的规则，但他没有让这些情绪影响他从赛车中榨取最大性能的决心。
正如他的比赛工程师 Alexandre Iliopoulos 所说：“他明白让这套赛车和这批规则变得更快有多重要。他完全投入其中，并努力提出正确的问题。”
促成 Lawson 本赛季有如此表现的另一个因素是，他终于迎来了一定的稳定性。
他自2022年作为测试/预备车手加入当时的AlphaTauri车队（他在2021年底参加了阿布扎比季后测试）以来，已经在现在名为小红牛的车队待到了第五个年头，而这是他参赛的第三个'年头'。
不过，他在2023年和2024年的参赛都是赛季末的替补/顶替任务，而去年则因为红牛的艰难开局以及随后重建自信而黯淡无光。
直到2026年，他才在冬季保持了连续性，并获得了从一开始就能向车队系统输入知识所带来的好处。
Lawson完全确信这对他有所帮助。"这非常重要，"他说。"我们在季前测试中遇到了很多困难，花了很多时间讨论我们需要前进的方向。
"因此，参与这些对话，了解我们正在开发的一切，确切知道我们的重点是什么，这一点非常重要。"
"我不是在错过了这一切之后才加入，然后试图努力追赶。"
"很简单，就像在一个比赛周末，如果你因为某个问题错过了一节练习赛，它对你的影响比你想象的要大。当所有人都处于最佳状态时再试图追赶是相当困难的。"
Iliopoulos 说，这种稳定性因素可能是许多人没有认识到的。
"说实话，去年才是他在F1的第一个赛季，尽管他已经在车队待了很长时间，"他说。
"我们可能容易忘记，他当时几乎还是个新秀。显然，F1的经验非常关键，因为这项赛事与其他赛车运动有着巨大的不同。
"拥有整整一年的经验，对他聚焦于最重要的事情非常有帮助。"
另一个很有帮助的因素是Lawson与车队领队Permane之间的关系。
英文原文
Liam Lawson could be in line for a surprise Red Bull Racing return at the Dutch Grand Prix with Isack Hadjar reportedly in doubt due to an injury.
Lawson being in that position is down to the foundation he's put in place in an under-the-radar campaign in which Racing Bulls feels he's made huge progress - as Jon Noble explained with insight from the team and Lawson in this article earlier this week.
While Formula 1 drivers are often only as good as their last race, it is equally true to say that the measure of talent is not a one-off star showing. It's turning up week in, week out and repeating it.
Consistency is king, and delivering that in as competitive an arena as F1 is no mean feat.
It requires not just natural speed but a host of elements lining up in tandem. There is never one thing that is the trigger point; it's a lot of small details that must perfectly align.
That is very much the case with Liam Lawson in 2026, as he returns, three years on from his unexpected F1 debut, to the Dutch Grand Prix as the leading driver in the points standings outside of the top four teams.
With team-mate Arvid Lindblad having such an eye-catching rookie campaign and Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov leading the Formula 2 championship in his first full season, Lawson can't feel too comfortable. But by sitting ninth in the drivers' standings, just one place and 25 points behind Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar, he is certainly standing his ground in the seemingly never-ending battle for seat security across Red Bull's F1 teams.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster for the New Zealander since stepping in for the injured Daniel Ricciardo back in 2023, but he confesses that presently he is the happiest he has been in F1.
What is perhaps most striking though is that where he is now is such a world away from things just 12 months ago – when many had written him off after a troubled move to Red Bull, and thought he was on borrowed time at Racing Bulls.
Yet Lawson is, as he often shows on track, a steely and robust character who is not wired to roll over and accept defeat. He has knuckled down, listened to those close to him and focused on the bits of the job that make him faster.
As his team boss Alan Permane told The Race: "He's come on immensely. I can see he's happier, and in his driving he's more focused. He's quicker."
For Permane, the improvement has been noticeable, and is the result of Lawson having taken on board advice on things he needed to do better.
"I think if you said to him last year, 'you're doing these things wrong, and therefore, by doing this, we think you can be quicker,' maybe he wouldn't have agreed. But [this year] he has," he explained.
"He's listened to what we said to him. So that gives us a nice bit of trust. It makes us work together a little bit better. He maybe trusts me and trusts the team a bit more.
"When we say stuff to him, he knows we've only got his interests at heart because they're the same as our interests.
"If he's faster, we're all faster. But I don't say it's coming easy because he's working incredibly hard at it, and you can see that it's bearing fruit."
Lawson himself does not see his personal shift being so dramatic.
"It's easy to probably feel like, 'oh, I made a significant step since last year'. But not that much has changed, honestly," he tells The Race.
However, F1 is an area where details matter. And he acknowledges that this is a year where hard work pays off in particular, thanks to the complexities of deployment strategies that require ever closer effort with the engineers around him.
"I think there's probably a bit more homework you can do on each weekend to make sure that you're getting everything out of the power unit. That's something that's been quite powerful this year.
"I've enjoyed that work ethic with the team. The more you look into it, you find little things that work for you.
"There's been a couple of scenarios this year where I've benefited from something we've found before the race or before a session that we've used to our advantage.
"That stuff is always exciting - separating that from the actual cars themselves…"
A clear example of this came at the very first race in Australia.
Already on the Thursday track walk in Melbourne, Lawson was telling engineers that he reckoned lifting through some corners that in theory would be easy flat, like Turns 9/10, could help in harvesting energy more – to allow greater deployment later. He proved to be correct.
It is well known that Lawson does not like the 2026 rules but he has not allowed those feelings to overshadow his determination to get the most out of the cars.
As his race engineer Alexandre Iliopoulos says: "He understands how important it is to make this car and this series of regs fast. He fully is on board with it and tries to ask the right questions."
Another factor that has contributed to Lawson delivering this season is the fact that there has finally been some stability for him.
He's in his fifth year with what's now Racing Bulls since stepping up to the then-AlphaTauri team as test/reserve driver in 2022 (he had a run at the post-season Abu Dhabi test at the end of 2021), and this is the third 'year' of racing.
His campaigns in 2023 and 2024 were both late-season stand-in/replacement stints though, while last year was overshadowed by the difficult start with Red Bull and then the rebuilding of his confidence.
It is only in 2026 that there has been consistency over the winter and the benefits that come from being able to feed knowledge into the system from the off.
Lawson has absolutely no doubt that this has helped. "It's really important," he said. "We were struggling a lot in the pre-season tests and spent a lot of time talking about the direction we needed to go.
"So being a part of those conversations and knowing everything we're developing, knowing exactly what we're focused on, that's been really important.
"I'm not jumping in having missed all of that and just trying to sort of play catch-up.
"It's as simple as in a race weekend, if you miss a practice session because of an issue, it really knocks you back more than you'd think. Trying to play catch-up when everybody's at the top of their game is quite hard."
This stability element is something Iliopoulos says perhaps has not been appreciated by many.
"Really, last year was his first season in Formula 1 even though he'd been around for a lot of time," he said.
"We tend to forget maybe that he was almost a rookie. And obviously, experience in Formula 1 is key, I think, because it's such a different series from other motorsports.
"Having that full year of experience is very helpful for him to focus on the things that matter most."
One dynamic that has helped a lot also is Lawson's relationship with this team boss Permane.
The Race ·
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