Liam Lawson has revealed that he was informed by Red Bull ahead of the Singapore GP that he would replace Daniel Ricciardo at RB, which left him with mixed emotions all weekend at Marina Bay.
Red Bull confirmed on Thursday that Lawson will take over Ricciardo's seat at RB for the remainder of the F1 season, bringing to an abrupt end the Aussie's 14-year tenure in the sport.
For reasons only known to Red Bull, there was no formal send-off for the 35-year-old F1 veteran and eight-time Grand Prix. On the contrary, all official communication from Red Bull and RB regarding Ricciardo's fate was along the lines of “nothing has been decided yet”.
But Lawson knew, and given his good relationship with Ricciardo, the Kiwi admitted to enduring a difficult weekend in Singapore.
“Singapore was definitely not an enjoyable weekend for me just because obviously we all knew what was coming,” he told the New Zealand Herald.
“At the same time, Daniel has always been very good to me in a lot of ways when I drove last year.
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“Even this season, he's always been someone that I've never felt in competition with him or anything like that. He never made it feel like that. So it wasn't a nice feeling.
“But obviously this for me is, I get one shot at F1 and it's coming now and I'm obviously grateful for that opportunity. But now I need to take it with both hands.
“And at the same time, he said the same thing to me and he said 'you know you need to make the most of it'.”
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Lawson was quick to express his deep respect for how Ricciardo handled his situation last weekend.
"I can't even imagine going through that," he said. It's a similar position I was in last year, but obviously the guy is just a lot more public, a lot more famous than I am.
“So he's getting a lot of questions and trying to sidestep those, he did a very good job.”
Lawson admitted that the news of his return to the grid only “felt real” once it was officially announced on Thursday.
“It now finally does feel real, obviously I knew about it for the last, probably, two weeks, but until it's out there to the world, it obviously doesn't ever really feel set in stone,” he said.
“I couldn't tell anybody. It had been the plan for a long time now, where this was where I was leading.
“Obviously I had a contract date that needed to be fulfilled so basically it was going towards this way, and then a couple of weeks ago they told me this is what was going to happen. And then basically not long after that, it was set in stone.”
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