Liam Lawson reveals F1’s hidden family cost

Liam Lawson says the price of reaching Formula 1 was not just financial, but the happiness and family life his household gave up along the way, a reality he said was laid bare by a childhood card from his younger brother asking their father for more time.

Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Lawson recalled that his parents recently found a card his brother had written when he was about five or six years old. It read: “Dear Dad. If I like racing, will you spend a bit more time with me like Liam?” Lawson said the message “really” affected him because it captured what his siblings and the rest of his family had sacrificed for his career.

Asked what he had given up most in the pursuit of F1, Lawson replied: “Probably just happiness.” He said people probably assume he is much happier because of the position he is in, but after spending his whole life chasing one target, “I feel like I’m not happy until I do it.” He added that he does have happy moments, but said that overall the pursuit has demanded more than most people see.

That cost, he said, reached far beyond funding a racing career. “I feel like I'll never be able to almost repay the amount of sacrifice, and it's not just about money,” Lawson said. He described it as lost time with his father and lost time together as a family, with racing dictating their lives to the point that they “never went on holiday” and “didn’t really do anything else.”

Lawson’s route to Formula 1 stretched over years and continents. He left New Zealand for Germany in 2018 to continue his career, then raced through European junior categories as well as in Japan, Australia and New Zealand before making his F1 debut in 2023 as Daniel Ricciardo’s substitute. He later secured his first full Formula 1 season for 2025.

That achievement, Lawson said, will always matter because it was the dream he had worked toward. But the card from his brother still makes him think about “every single weekend being away,” and about how the cost of his rise was carried not only by him, but by his parents, brother and sisters as well.