Liam Lawson proved his mettle during his recent five-race stint with AlphaTauri, but Red Bull hasn’t promoted its protégé to a full-time seat in F1 for 2024. So what’s next for the talented Kiwi?
Lawson was drafted in at the last hour last August at the Dutch Grand Prix to replace Daniel Ricciardo following the latter’s crash in free practice at Zandvoort when he sustained a fractured metacarpal.
From that point on, the 21-year-old made the most of the opportunity he fortuitously inherited, improving with each outing and scoring his first championship points in Singapore where he qualified tenth and finished ninth after a flawless driver at Marina Bay.
But as impressive as he had been during his short apprenticeship with AlphaTauri, Red Bull preferred to extend the contracts of Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda at AlphaTauri for 2024 and keep its promising young talent in the wings.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has alluded to a bright future for Lawson, and to the near certainty of a race seat with the bulls in 2025.
But how will the young gun spend his time next season?
“Because I’ve raced in most championships and I’ve even been in F1, I can’t really go and do F2 again,” Lawson told F1’sTom Clarkson on a recent Beyond The Grid podcast. “There’d be no point.
“I can’t do Super Formula again. I could, but there’s less benefit from doing it.
“So I think it’s full focus on being reserve. That means a lot of simulator, which for me, I think is what helped getting into Formula 1 and adjusting to it so quickly.
“I’ve been two years now, nearly, as a reserve so I’ve done lots of simulator work over the last couple of years and that will just continue now into next year, and getting to learn and basically absorb being alongside the best team in Formula 1 right now.
“I get to sit through all the meetings and learn how they operate.”
©AlphaTauri
Embedding with Red Bull Racing again next season will certainly benefit Lawson’s knowledge and insight, but biding his time will do little for his sense of fulfillment and purpose.
Yet patience is a virtue. But that doesn’t mean that waiting for his time to come isn’t without its frustrations for Lawson.
“I’s frustrating to take,” he admits. “But I can sit there and make sense of this decision and understand.
“It’s frustrating to not be driving next year, but I will continue to make the most of still being involved in Formula 1 at least.
“I’m a Red Bull driver. If I ever get a chance in Formula 1, it’ll be through Red Bull Racing. I think it would be Red Bull that give me my shot.”
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