AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost has recently opined as per F1TV that taking a rookie driver in the team involves a huge risk given how tight the budget cap is. At this stage, things going wrong with rookies might be even more punishing as they are often too inexperienced to handle an F1 car. Amid this, the irony hit Tost and AlphaTauri as Liam Lawson was called up to fill in for injured Daniel Ricciardo.
Ricciardo got himself injured after he suffered a collision during the FP2 of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. It was Oscar Piastri of McLaren who lost control of his car and hit the TechPro barrier at Turn 3. Seconds later, the honey badger joined him as he hit the wall directly and injured his wrist.
Ricciardo injuring himself has left a vacuum at the Red Bull sister team and there were doubts about who would replace him at Zandvoort. Even former driver Nyck de Vries’ name also came up. Ultimately Helmut Marko confirmed that they would call up rookie Lawson, who never had a competitive F1 drive so far.
Tost faced ultimate irony hours after his statement
AlphaTauri boss Tost along with Guenther Steiner and James Vowles of Haas and Williams respectively attended the Zandvoort race weekend press conference. There, the bosses were asked if siding with experienced drivers meant more than doing so with rookies.
Answering this, the 67-year-old said, “It will become much more difficult for rookie drivers to come into Formula 1 as it was a couple of years ago.” Following this, he emphasized how the grid is so close together. From a financial point of view, it is very risky to have inexperienced hands.
Even though it all might be ironic for Tost, this can be a big chance for the Red Bull reserve driver to leave his mark and secure his future in F1.
Can Lawson make his F1 chance work?
Liam Lawson has been on the pipeline to be on one of the Red Bull-backed seats for a very long time. The promising driver has impressed everyone with his talents from his early days.
However, the New Zealander also had a chance to come to AlphaTauri when Nyck de Vries was sacked. Nevertheless, the Red Bull fraternity decided to go ahead with Daniel Ricciardo instead.
Nevertheless, with the instability that Sergio Perez is going through at Red Bull, there might be a glimpse of hope for Lawson to finally get his big break.
