After months of speculation about his future, the 2024 Singapore GP turned out to be Daniel Ricciardo’s final F1 race weekend for the time being. As expected, RB have dropped him for the rest of the season. Liam Lawson was the most likely candidate to replace the Aussie driver and is now confirmed to race for the Faenza-based outfit from the US GP onwards.
Lawson, a young driver from New Zealand, has had an impressive junior career, which eventually earned him his spot in the Red Bull junior academy in 2019. His career took off in 2016 when he moved to the NZ F1600 Championship Series, becoming the youngest champion in its history with 14 wins.
The following year he raced in the Australian F4 championship, finishing second with five wins. In 2018, Lawson participated in the ADAC Formula 4 championship with Van Amersfoort Racing.
He claimed three wins and three pole positions to finish second yet again. The same year he also won the rookies’ championship in the Euroformula Open.
LIAM LAWSON
Obecna Seria: Super Formula
Od kiedy jest w RBJT: 2019
Sukcesy na koncie:
3 miejsce Formula 2 (2022)
2 miejsce DTM (2021)
2 miejsce Toyota Racing Series (2020)
1 miejsce Toyota Racing Series (2019)
2 miejsce Euroformula Open (2019)
2 miejsce ADAC F4 (2018) pic.twitter.com/pD4ShposiJ— TRUTH RACING (@TRUTH_RACING_PL) March 17, 2023
Although Lawson has been very successful through the junior ranks, his success came at the expense of his family making several sacrifices to fund his racing career. He once shed light on this in an interview with the ‘Mind Set Win’ podcast. His sisters sacrificed their dancing careers despite being national-level Irish dancers.
Lawson also revealed that his parents had to sell their own house to help him continue racing. Now, all of Lawson’s family’s sacrifices will be worth it if the New Zealander receives a full-time F1 seat in 2025 as promised by the Red Bull bosses.
Why is Ricciardo making way for Lawson?
Red Bull haven’t been satisfied with Ricciardo’s underperformance this season. While the eight-time race winner has produced good results in Miami and Canada, he hasn’t been as consistent as his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Lawson is replacing him mainly because of a rumored clause in his contract which states that if Red Bull do not offer him a race seat for the 2025 season, he would become a free agent.
This date has now supposedly passed, and Red Bull bosses Helmut Marko and Christian Horner have seem to have discussed their driver lineup situation at both teams after the Singapore weekend. Lawson currently serves as the reserve driver for both Red Bull-owned teams.
However, replacing Ricciardo is not something Lawson will do for the first time. After the Honey Badger suffered a hand injury following a crash at Zandvoort last season, the Kiwi driver replaced him at AlphaTauri (now RB) for five races.
Lawson not only managed to score his first-ever points in F1 in Singapore last year, but he also left everyone in the paddock mighty impressed with his level of preparedness and calm demeanor.
However, he was left disappointed when Red Bull decided to continue with the Ricciardo-Tsunoda pairing for 2024 at RB. And while Dr. Marko had promised him that he would be in one of their cars in 2025, the opportunity has come sooner than he expected.
