Liam Lawson will start 2024 on the sidelines but Red Bull has told the Kiwi that he must be ready to jump back into the fray in F1 “at any point” next season.
Lawson was called up at the last hour by Red Bull last August to replace Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri following the latter's crash in FP2 at the Dutch Grand Prix in which the Aussie fractured his left hand.
The 21-year-old acquitted himself well on his debut and steadily improved thereafter. In just his third race, in Singapore, Lawson made it into Q3 in qualifying and scored his maiden championship points on race day.
But despite his impressive five-race interim at AlphaTauri, Lawson was passed over for a full-time seat with the Faenza-based outfit for 2024, as Red Bull has opted to extend the contracts of both Yuki Tsunoda and Ricciardo
©AlphaTauri
Lawson will therefore need to bide his time although circumstances could lead to a call-up at any time.
“Obviously I want to be racing, but the goal is to be in F1,” Lawson told Motorsport.com.
“It’s never nice to only be able to watch, but I’ll try and make the most of the opportunity, as I have been doing up until now, to prepare.
“As much as I would like to be racing a car, it’s what Red Bull has decided is the best thing for me right now. They want me to be 100% focused on being ready at any point.”
Last weekend, Lawson concluded his spell in the Japanese Super Formula series, the Kiwi missing out on the title but finishing runner-up to Ritomo Miyata after an eventful final weekend at Suzuka.
“I’ll definitely miss racing in Super Formula,” Lawson said “Especially having not won the title here, it’s something I would have liked to accomplish, but that’s the way it is.”
Lawson says the series’ ultra-competitive and professional environment was exactly as he expected it to be, while its many similarities with F1 constituted a solid preparation for F1.
“It’s been exactly what Red Bull told me it would be,” the 21-year-old charger explained. “I knew the car was faster and a step closer to F1, but it’s also things like the size of the team, working with a manufacturer like Honda, and the competitiveness of the racing.
“There are a lot of similarities between what we’re looking at on the car on the simulator in F1 and what we’re doing with this car. That has been a big part of preparing me for F1.
“I definitely wouldn’t have been as ready for F1 as I was if I hadn’t done the first part of the [Super Formula] season and I was just making the step directly from F2.
“If you look at the guys who are making that step, you can tell it’s a big challenge, even for a full season. This championship has bridged the gap.”
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