F1 aspirant Liam Lawson got a sudden opportunity to showcase his skills at the top level of motorsports when he was called up to replace the injured Daniel Ricciardo. A major crash during the second Free Practice session saw Ricciardo come out with a broken wrist, and he was subsequently unable to continue. Lawson stepped in on Saturday and despite putting in a decent performance during the main race on Sunday, former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer commented that Lawson’s performance wasn’t good enough to warrant him a seat at AlphaTauri even if the opportunity opens up.
Despite qualifying dead last on his full F1 debut, Lawson made good use of the mixed conditions on Sunday and moved up the grid to finish P13. More importantly, he finished ahead of his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who had somewhat of a poor race himself.
Lawson has come into the team at a time when things are getting quite uncertain at Red Bull. With Perez’s constant underperformance, his seat at Red Bull is expected to be matter of doubt. And if someone from AlphaTauri moves up to fill the spot, a place opens up in AlphaTauri. However, as per Palmer, Lawson needs to do much more to be considered for even that potentially open seat.
Liam Lawson did not do anything special as per Jolyon Palmer
Jolyon Palmer joined Will Buxton and Stoffel Vandoorne for the Post Race Show where they discussed Lawson’s performance. Buxton commented that Lawson did an amazing job according to him and now AlphaTauri have three drivers to choose from, to fill up two seats, but Palmer doesn’t believe so.
Palmer disagreed with Buxton and commented that Lawson did not do anything special during the race to come into consideration for the AlphaTauri seat. He said, “He [Lawson] did fine, he kept it on the road, he didn’t look out of place on the grid, but he also didn’t really shine.”
Palmer explained further that the grid is extremely competitive at this point in time and Ricciardo is expected to be back after he completes his recovery. As per Palmer, if Lawson and Ricciardo are fighting for the same seat, it is quite natural that Ricciardo would win out that battle.
One more chance for Lawson
Despite all of this, Lawson will certainly get at least one more chance to prove his worth. Daniel Ricciardo would take at least three weeks to recover completely from the injury and as stated by Christian Horner, he is targeting the Singapore GP for his comeback.
This means that Lawson will have yet another chance to race for AlphaTauri, this time at the Italian GP in Monza. A good performance there might not open up his chance of getting a seat in 2024, but might change his fortunes when it comes to the long term.
