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 pair of them may appear to be quite different characters, but they share a trait of saying things as they see them. There is no beating around the bush or a desire to treat anybody with kid gloves.

"We have a good relationship," says Permane. "I'm not scared to give him a b*****king if it's not going well. I'm also trying not to be an ogre.

"I do try and be really honest with the drivers. If something isn't good enough, I'll tell them. But also, if they've done a fantastic job, I'll tell them as well. So I do try and give them that feedback."

It's a stance Lawson likes.

Speaking about Permane he says: "He's very black and white, and I'm very, very black and white as well. I think that's been something that we relate to a lot when we talk about weekends.

"We talk about things that need to be better and more things that we've done a good job at. It's just honestly taking the learnings, shutting the door, and focusing on the next weekend."

Lawson is certainly thriving in the exponential gains that come from a run of good results. Confidence-boosting performances deliver more belief to chase ever better results.

As Iliopoulos explains: "In every sport, the confidence aspect is very important. Scoring points is important to [help you] keep focussing on what matters.

"There's so many details, so many things that you can get lost in - and then you start doubting stuff and not trusting what people say.

"So if you score, it reinforces that you trust the car, you trust the people, you trust the engineers and you trust the whole process. And then you can just focus on driving the car and driving it fast."

Right now, that is exactly what Lawson is doing – and it has resulted in him being the happiest he has been in F1 even though he knows his final job is not done yet.

"Yeah, definitely you enjoy it when you have success," he said. "But at the end of the day, we know we all have this mission that we're all working towards.

"That's very much the focus, and I get maybe more enjoyment out of taking steps and getting closer to that."