Liam Lawson recently had a mega entry to Formula 1 after he was called up to replace an injured Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri. Even though the New Zealander did not have a perfect entry into the sport, he can still call himself lucky to have the chance. After being impressed with Lawson’s efforts, Helmut Marko, talking to Servus TV, called him at par with Bruce McLaren, who gave birth to a $760,000,000 car operation, as per GP Blog.
McLaren was a racing car driver, engineer, designer, and inventor from New Zealand. He drove in Formula 1 for over a decade, from 1958 to 1970, and founded the McLaren F1 team in 1963. Today, the Papayas stand as one of the most successful teams in F1.
Lawson, who isn’t even a three-race experienced driver, has been compared to the great McLaren by veteran Marko. This shows the importance the Red Bull taskmaster gave to another young New Zealander at this age.
Helmut Marko compared Liam Lawson with Bruce McLaren
Marko, the renowned Red Bull veteran, compared Lawson with the late McLaren for a specific reason. He mentioned that the young driver is clever during the battle on the track.
Talking about this, the 80-year-old said, “Liam has been with us for a while and he is a very strong driver. He is clever during his battles on the track. He is a bit like Bruce McLaren. We definitely need to keep watching him for the future.”
It was indeed impressive how the New Zealander coped with the challenges despite having very little experience with the F1 car. Therefore, with Marko’s recent claim, his F1 future is only one step away now.
Is Lawson the next big talent coming out of the Red Bull fraternity?
There have been multiple rumors about driver changes in the Red Bull fraternity for the last few months. Rumors came out that Yuki Tsunoda might replace the underperforming Sergio Perez at Red Bull, or Daniel Ricciardo might do it as well.
With Lawson’s addition, he proved that he is too worthy of an F1 seat. Therefore, he put Ricciardo under immense pressure that if Red Bull replace him, the seat would come to nobody but Liam Lawson.
Furthermore, the young driver could also be poached by rivals such as Williams and Alfa Romeo, who are still to confirm Logan Sargeant and Guanyu Zhou as their respective driver for the 2024 F1 season.
