Liam Lawson says he knows the importance of his 2023 F1 appearances as a stand-in for the injured Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri, but insists he is not looking ahead to a potential 2024 seat and is just focusing on doing his best at the upcoming Italian GP at Monza.
Photo Credit: Scuderia AlphaTauri
Lawson made his F1 debut at the Dutch GP, and although he qualified last, he finished the race in a very respectable 13th place, one place ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda after the latter had to serve a 5-second time penalty for an earlier incident.
Speaking to selected media ahead of the Italian GP weekend, the New Zealander said the most difficult part of his debut at Zandvoort was the challenging mixed weather conditions throughout Saturday and Sunday, and admitted he only got comfortable at the wheel in the middle of the race:
“Trying to drive in Formula One you have to have so much confidence with the car, with how fast it is and trying to gain that confidence with it in those conditions were probably the most challenging thing. We had a very short time frame so you’re almost kind of faking it until you get that feeling, and it only really came probably halfway through the race to be honest.
“When it massively down poured right before the red flag and cars were going off everywhere, that was extremely difficult not to fire the car off and probably the most important part as well in [my] first race. Obviously, it’s important to just finish all 72 laps that was the target and that was probably the point where that could have all came crashing down.
“I think the start obviously was a lot of learning to do, first time driving on the slicks in Zandvoort, so the first part of the race which we kind of knew anyway that it was going to be a lot of learning and getting up to speed.
“And then other little things – pit stop entries, pit stop practice, starts, things like that – all the little things that take a lot of time and procedure stuff that are probably the things that we look back on to try and improve for the weekend.”
The 21-year-old says he “understands” the importance of his F1 appearances and what they could mean for a potential future in the category, but says that is not distracting him from fully focusing in this weekend’s Italian GP and taking it as a standalone opportunity:
“I think any time you get a shot, I mean you really only get one shot at Formula 1 and so for me that’s come right now so I understand for sure the importance of it but it’s not like something that I’m looking at trying to set up for next year.
“Right now the focus is on this weekend, I know how important it is but that’s really as far as it goes.”
Whilst in Zandvoort his main target was to have a “clean race” after only having one (very wet) practice session and a Q1 to prepare, he said that further objectives will be set to him after the Friday practice sessions at Monza, given the better preparation will mean he and the team can start to think about performance targets:
“Not a clear target like a position or something like that for the weekend just to I guess continue to improve,” he said when asked what targets Helmut Marko and Christian Horner have set for him at Monza. “But I’m sure before the weekend or after practice at least we’ll have more of an idea of where we sit with everybody and then maybe I have more of a clear target.
“[For me, it’s the] same target, just obviously complete the race and do all the laps. On performance it’s hard because that’s why right now [we’ll be] looking at free practice. I think after free practice we’ll have more of an understanding of whereabouts we are.”
