via Red Bull / John Mayer press photo
Formula 1 weekend in Austin is a circus that swallows the whole city for four days. The race out by the airport is just the main tent. Half the action happens nowhere near the Circuit of the Americas. This year it also collided with a big Saturday night game against Ole Miss. So every bar on the east side was crawling with race fans from all over the globe, shoulder to shoulder with SEC fans in polos and loafers. Paddock lanyards met tailgate koozies. Of course, because it’s Austin and Austin loves being weird, everybody mostly got along.
On Thursday night I ended up at Inn Cahoots on East 6th Street for Esses Bazaar ATX. Esses Magazine, a motorsport and culture mag, threw the party. A DJ was spinning Tejano. A Selena tribute band, Bidi Bidi Banda, was on the bill. Visa Cash App Racing Bulls had a show car on hand for selfies.
Then an actual F1 driver walked onstage with a pink guitar.
The driver was Liam Lawson. The 24-year-old Kiwi races for Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s Ford-powered sister team. He was headlining the team’s Garage Sessions. That made him the first active F1 driver to headline a show during a race weekend. His backing band was his brother and two buddies he grew up jamming with back home.
The guitar is from Taylor Guitars, who built him a custom LL30 GS Mini with a pink-to-white ombre top. His No. 30 sits on the pickguard. His cartoon helmet logo is engraved on the truss rod cover. A limited run hits stores later this year.
“I’ve played Taylor Guitars since I was very, very young, so it’s pretty special,” Lawson told me earlier in the day at the track.
John Mayer, Honestly
I caught Lawson a few hours before showtime. My first question was who his dream musical collaborator would be. He barely had to think.
“As a musician, I’d love to get up and actually play with… It’d probably be John Mayer, honestly,” he said.
Then I asked for his favorite Mayer song. He clammed up.
“I don’t want to say it, because that potentially gives away a song that we’re doing tonight,” he said.
Fair enough. The secret held for about four hours. That night, an F1 driver stood in front of a room full of race fans and played Mayer’s “Daughters,” the Heavier Things ballad that won Mayer Song of the Year at the 2005 Grammys. The setlist also had Sam Barber’s “Indigo” and “Rein Me In,” the Sam Fender and Olivia Dean song.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Lawson to play “Daughters.” Maybe “Gravity” or “Why Georgia.” Or the high-energy “No Such Thing.” But it worked, with his brother singing the verse while the band came in on the chorus.
The whole night had a cozy coffee-house feel, which is a funny vibe for this sport. F1 drivers pull brutal G-forces through corners at 200 mph for a living. On Thursday, one of them strummed an acoustic guitar and sang a tender song about fathers raising their girls. I loved every second of it.
His favorite Mayer era is the live stuff. Here, just watch our chat:
“My favorite John Mayer stuff was his performances, like, live in LA,” he said.
Mayerheads know the Where the Light Is era well. The man has taste. When I said “the trio”, he lit up like a Christmas tree. I don’t think he expected me to know the gloriously bluesy John Mayer trio with bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan. Hundreds of lav mics get clipped on F1 drivers throughout a race weekend, and it’s rare a journalist holding a tiny mic in his face was a fellow Mayer ball-knower. Game respect game.
He’d love to see Mayer at the Sphere, too. Mayer has 21 shows booked there from April through June 2027. That’s the meat of the F1 calendar. So Liam will probably miss “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” under the Sphere’s giant LED dome because of his commitments on track worldwide.
“I wish I could go to the Sphere in Vegas next year. I don’t think I can make it because of our schedule,” Lawson said.
I picked his brain more about music, and the rest is gloriously normal. I asked about the first song he ever learned.
“Probably like ‘Smoke on the Water’ or something like that. You know, the basic guitar song that everyone learns.”
His dad took him to his first concert.
“It was Def Leppard when I was like eight or nine years old,” he said.
His other favorite show was Fred again.. “He was sick,” Lawson said.
Before I let him go, I asked how he felt about the gig.
“I’m feeling a lot of things for Garage Sessions, but I’m excited,” he said.
Lawson filled in more of the backstory in a separate chat with PEOPLE. His dad, Jared, plays in a band and put guitars in both boys’ hands by age six. Liam grew up on ’80s rock and sat seven years of guitar exams. He admits his younger brother Marcos has since gotten better than him. These days he leans country because most of it only needs four or five chords. He also said Austin was his first public performance since age 11. He called it scarier than racing a Grand Prix.
I regret not asking about Mayer’s latest song, “Tom and Jerry.” The timing would have been perfect.
Enter Daniel Ricciardo, Harmonica Man
Nothing in Austin during race weekend happens without a cameo.
Daniel Ricciardo showed up to cheer Lawson on and posed for photos with him. Lawson replaced Ricciardo at Racing Bulls in 2024. F1 is a small town.
Ricciardo is now a Ford Racing ambassador, and his week was just as bonkers. It started at Ford’s third annual Raptor Rally in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Nearly 1,000 people and more than 450 Raptors showed up to fling trucks around the desert. Then he drove a Raptor about 1,200 miles to Austin with country singer Rob Baird along for the ride.
Over the weekend I watched the two of them jam at the Ford Racing Den at Distribution Hall. Baird sang. Ricciardo played harmonica. His Enchanté brand had an all-American Ford Racing pop-up running in the same building. Fittingly, the Enchanté x Ford collab was called “The Long Road To Austin.”
Meanwhile, The Day Job
Fans caught the “next year” in that Sphere answer. One commenter replied, “can’t make because of his schedule next year?? 👀”
It’s a fair question the motorsports media world is trying to unpack. Lawson still doesn’t know if he has a seat in 2027. Racing Bulls has three drivers for two seats. Lawson and rookie Arvid Lindblad have them now. F2 hotshot Nikola Tsolov wants one. Team principal Alan Permane said in Singapore that three doesn’t fit into two. The team still hasn’t announced anything. Until it does, Lawson is stuck waiting on the World to change.
Lawson keeps making his case. He qualified ninth at COTA on Saturday and finished ninth in the Grand Prix on Sunday. This is about the ceiling when the top four teams hog the first eight spots. After the flag, Permane got on the radio and asked if he wanted to play another Thursday gig in Mexico.
“Yeah, I felt so relaxed all weekend, honestly,” Lawson said, laughing.
This is the same guy Red Bull promoted to Max Verstappen’s teammate in 2025, then demoted after two races. He’s answered with his best season yet. He sits ninth in the drivers’ standings. Turns out his career had a little more Gravity than Red Bull thought. With so much on the line, there’s no room for squares.Â
The Comments Section Has Spoken
My interview with Lawson about Mayer took off on BroBible’s Instagram. The comments mostly petitioned for the same thing: a collab between the F1 driver and Mayer to actually manifest.
“Bro know ball” pulled 159 likes. Another fan confessed to loving Lawson “since….. Just now.”
The Deadheads rolled in too, lobbying for a Liam Lawson and Jerry Garcia collab. Mayer played 48 Sphere shows with Dead & Company, so the bit lands.
One commenter pitched Racing Bulls on bringing Mayer to the garage at next month’s Vegas Grand Prix. They pointed to the Sphere residency as proof the synergy has never been stronger.
A few Mexican fans, who haven’t loved Lawson since his 2024 dustup with Checo Pérez, admitted he’s growing on them. Good timing, with the Mexico City Grand Prix this weekend.
Your move, John.
Seriously. This all feels like a cosmic wink from the universe. Kismet, perhaps? Serendipity, definitely, between two cultural forces in two very different lanes.
Have your manager reach out to me: brandon@brobible.com; I’d love to connect the dots between these two wonderful worlds.