Liam Lawson is back. Following an impressive 5-race stint last year as he subbed for Daniel Ricciardo who picked up an injury at Zandvoort in practice, the Kiwi has six rounds to prove himself that he deserves to stay on the grid in 2025.
“That’s literally once, obviously once in a lifetime. And it’s something that I need to take with both hands. So I got a shot last year,” said Lawson on the F1 Nation podcast.
“I knew it was temporary last year. That was about trying to give myself a shot full time at getting a seat. And now I’ve got it.”
In the aforementioned 5-race run he had, Lawson made Q3 and scored points in Singapore. The 22-year-old also beat Yuki Tsunoda on merit at Suzuka.
As he performed very well, the pressure was on Ricciardo and Tsunoda to lead RB in 2024 to retain their seat. It turned out that the Japanese driver got the edge, delivering the results when the car was its quickest earlier in the campaign.
By Baku, the Red Bull management made up their mind and decided to drop Ricciardo after the Singapore Grand Prix, handing Lawson another chance in F1. Helmut Marko had wanted it to happen from Spain, with Christian Horner ultimately giving the Australian more time.
The 5-time Formula 2 race winner admitted Horner had already said to him last year that he would get a chance during the 2024 season, although it was not clear exactly when that would happen.
“The idea of me jumping in is something that Christian told me a year ago.
“And when I stepped out of the car, that was one of the things he said to me is that, he said, ‘I give you my word, I’ll basically have you in a race seat at some point next year’.
“So I always knew that that was the intention. And it’d been talked about.
“But I mean, as you know, Formula One is a roller coaster and every weekend things change. So one minute it looks really good and then it doesn’t look good. And it’s all depending on how the guys are actually going.
“And it’s a bit horrible to be honest because you’re kind of sitting there wondering what your chances are of driving it, and it completely depends on how the guys that are currently driving are doing. And you don’t obviously want somebody’s downfall to be your way in.
“But if it’s for me to drive, somebody has to leave, obviously.
“So there was no clear route of where that was going to be though. So it wasn’t like in 12 months time, you’re going to switch with this person. It was in 12 months time, ‘we’re going to have you a seat, but we just don’t know where yet’.
“So that was kind of where throughout the year the discussions were being had. And it was only, it was actually Baku time where Christian finally told me that I’d be jumping in.”
It’s Lawson second spell in F1 where he’s come in either mid-season or towards the end of it, meaning he is yet to take to the grid at the opening round.
His last start in 2023 came at the Qatar Grand Prix. Just over a year later he takes to the track once again at the United States GP this weekend.
Lawson admits it’s an odd and unique situation, especially as he has been racing almost non-stop since 2010.
“I know [it’s odd].
“And to be honest, this year has been the most unique, the strangest year, and probably something I didn’t […] I knew that I would miss driving the car because, you know, obviously that’s what we want to do, what our dream is to race cars, especially in Formula One.
“And I knew that stepping back into just a reserve role with no racing programme, I knew that I’d do a lot less driving. That was really my only concern.
“But what I realised very quickly is I actually missed the competition side. I actually missed racing. I missed not having a season.
“Like I’ve raced in a championship since I was seven years old, every single year until this year, basically. And this year I’ve done no actual racing. There’s been no championship or competition. It’s just been little bits of tests here and there.”
Regarding targets set by Red Bull, Lawson has been told to match Tsunoda. Although he beat the 24-year-old at Suzuka last year, the Japanese driver had a lot of bad luck in that spell.
A bad strategy cost Tsunoda points in Zandvoort, he was taken out by Pérez in Singapore, and he never took the start at Monza thanks to his engine giving up on the formation lap.
RB are only three points clear of Haas in the battle for P6 in the Constructors’ Championship. Points will be critical as well.
“Basically, they’re expecting me to perform at least as well as Yuki is what the goal is from the team, I would say. They want me to match him and basically perform.
“They want points. Obviously, the team is fighting for sixth in the constructors and that’s quite important for VCARB, so to basically score points is the goal. If we’re scoring points, then I think at that point, we’re basically doing a good job.
“Honestly, that’s the target that’s been set, but we’re always being evaluated. It’s been like this since I was 16, joining with Red Bull. It’s always performance-based, we’re always under evaluation, so it’s no different really to how it’s always been.”
Critically for the New Zealander, he got some vital running in at Mugello last week during a Pirelli tyre test.
Lawson completed 116 laps in the RB20 as he got comfortable driving an F1 car again, with plenty of long runs completed in the process.
“And to be honest, the way the day went as well with Pirelli, as much as it probably wasn’t the most fun day for a racing driver, because we want to do short runs, quali runs, low fuel. We did none of that.
“It was very much long runs the whole day on heavy fuel and no DRS and just consecutive laps.
“But it was, as you say, probably the best thing for me because in the end we did 116 laps of just basically long running and getting comfortable driving a car again.”
