How a devastating title loss steeled Red Bull’s latest charge for F1

Liam Lawson’s Formula 1 debut couldn’t have come in much trickier circumstances. Dropped into an AlphaTauri at Zandvoort after Daniel Ricciardo shunted during second practice, breaking a bone in his left wrist, Lawson had a wet track to contend with in FP3 as he drove a ground-effect F1 car for the first time since last December’s Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi.

Matters didn’t get much easier on race day when rain hit shortly after the start, making it difficult for Lawson to gain confidence with his unfamiliar machine. But the 21-year-old Kiwi didn’t disgrace himself and kept it on the island in the late-race deluge when many more experienced drivers did not. Bringing the car home an undamaged 13th, he had every right to be “reasonably satisfied” with his day’s work.

Adaptability is an important virtue for F1 rookies and Lawson has it in spades. That much is clear from his record of winning at the first attempt in the Toyota Racing Series, Euroformula Open, Formula 2, Super Formula and during his 2021 foray into sportscars with the Red Bull-branded AF Corse outfit in DTM. The team’s sporting director Ron Reichert remembers that Lawson’s propensity to learn quickly was evident from his first run in the Ferrari 488 GT3 at Hockenheim.

“It was very clear from that moment there’s
an incredible amount of talent behind the wheel,” Reichert tells GP Racing. “That
certainly changed the expectations.”

Coming of age

Lawson has packed a lot of racing into a short space of time. A native of Pukekohe, home of the classic (now, sadly, closed) circuit which once hosted the Tasman Series’ New Zealand Grands Prix, he moved to Europe in 2018 at the age of just 16. Reichert notes that Lawson demonstrates
a maturity beyond his years, which he believes
is a result of the personal sacrifices involved
with leaving home to pursue a career in Europe at such a young age.

“He was really long separated from his comfortable family environment,” Reichert reflects. “Being so young away from the family in New Zealand isn’t easy. You couldn’t go back after every race. That made him mature quite a bit, much more than most people his age.”

Reichert (left) says Lawson is mature for his tender age having moved to Europe as a teen

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Second in ADAC F4, he then beat then-Ferrari protege Marcus Armstrong to win the 2019 Toyota Racing Series crown. This secured Lawson Red Bull Junior status and required him to make a big leap into FIA Formula 3 alongside a Euroformula programme in which he’d be compared with Yuki Tsunoda at Motopark.

Lawson shone brightest of the pair in Euroformula, finishing second in the points, but Tsunoda fared better on the F1 support bill. He’d earn an F2 berth for 2020 and overtake Lawson in the pecking order on his rapid ascent to F1, while Lawson returned to F3 and finished fifth as rookie Oscar Piastri swept to the crown.

Lawson graduated to F2 for 2021 and departed Bahrain’s triple-header second in the standings to Zhou Guanyu after winning the curtain-raiser. But a few skirmishes, and disqualification from victory in Monaco for incorrect throttle map usage at the start, contributed to sliding back to ninth.

However, it was in his parallel DTM programme that Lawson arguably came of age. In conversation with GP Racing in Singapore, Lawson says his DTM campaign “taught me a lot” as he relished “being part of a big team” and, on the other foot, discovered “how unfair motorsport can be”.

"Maybe other things will just hit you much less hard than if everything had always just gone smoothly.
A lot of people arrive in F1 without having ever having to go through that kind of situation" Ron Reichert

The circumstances that cost Lawson the DTM title are widely known. Double pole for the Norisring finale set him up as the man to beat and, after surviving a Turn 1 fracas for third
in the opener, he took an 18-point advantage
into the decider. But when rival Kelvin van der Linde clattered into him at the first corner, crippling Lawson’s Ferrari, the door was open
for Mercedes to ruthlessly mobilise team orders and move aside its two leading cars for championship outsider Maxi Gotz to snatch the crown from a “devastated” Lawson.

“Not just for me, but for the whole team, because they deserved it,” Lawson clarifies.

However, Reichert considers that there may
be a benefit from what he hopes will be “the worst thing that happens to him in motorsport”.

“It’s always good if you have your worst experience fairly early,” he says. “If something else negative happens, you can always tell yourself; ‘Norisring was much worse’. Maybe other things will just hit you much less hard than if everything had always just gone smoothly.
A lot of people arrive in F1 without having ever having to go through that kind of situation.”

When Lawson's Ferrari was crippled in first corner contact at the Norisring finale, it opened the door for Gotz to snatch the 2021 DTM title to leave Lawson devastated

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Knowledge that it wouldn’t derail his efforts to reach F1 helped Lawson process his defeat, although he acknowledges “it took a long time to get past”. Given his time all over again, would he exchange that experience for the title?

“I don’t know!” he admits. “I wish we could have been able to win it, I wish I’d been able to do it for them [AF Corse]. But for me, I wouldn’t change anything that’s got me to this point.”

Lessons in defeat

Treated by AF Corse like a professional rather than a junior, and in an entirely different discipline where driving standards were on the robust side, meant this was a wholly different environment for Lawson. Team-mate Alex Albon, seeking to rebuild his career after losing his Red Bull F1 seat to Sergio Perez, was in a similar position. With more weight, less aerodynamic influence, reduced visibility and ABS, the cars required a driving technique entirely different from single-seaters.

Notably, Lawson adapted faster. At 19 he became the DTM’s youngest-ever winner on debut at Monza, charging from seventh after Mercedes had dominated qualifying with five cars in the top six.

“It didn’t take a lot to get him fired up,” insists Reichert. “First of all, he doesn’t want to be involved in the politics, he doesn’t care about them and he doesn’t need any motivation.
Every time he drives, he wants to win. Often enough he does it.”

Lawson learned a great deal from Albon in 2021. Reichert notes that the Thai driver “was a very good help for Liam on the weekends that didn’t go our way”, adding: “Alex did a great job in guiding Liam in a
lot of moments, also how to handle the bad moments.”

Lawson reckons Albon “probably got sick of” him asking “a lot of questions” about F1 and concedes Reichert’s comments are accurate.

“This is a very tough sport, it can be very harsh sometimes,” he muses. “It was good for me, there was a lot I took away from that season.”

Lawson closely observed Albon during their time as team-mates in DTM, which Reichert believes helped bring him on

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Both drivers fully bought into AF Corse’s “probably very painful” regular, in-depth debriefs and were a model of professionalism, Reichert adds, leaving him in no doubt of Lawson’s suitability for F1.

“After he’s been with us in DTM, I think none of us in AF Corse ever had a doubt that Liam will be in F1, it was just a question when,” he asserts.

Sharing a track with people who took a somewhat uncompromising approach to overtaking (“you cannot leave the smallest
piece of space to anyone because people just went for every gap,” says Reichert, “even the gaps that didn’t exist”) helped turn Lawson
into a hardened racer. But it didn’t change
what his colleagues viewed as a “humble
and normal” character.

Lawson acknowledges that he “would definitely not” be as prepared for F1 without Super Formula, specifically explaining that he’s gained “a lot more of an understanding of what’s actually going on with the car”

“Fair racing was very important to him,” Reichert says, “not being dirty in that kind of sense. He wanted to win races fair and square.”

Big in Japan

Lawson made three F1 practice appearances in 2022, lapping within three tenths of Sergio Perez upon taking over Max Verstappen’s Red Bull in Abu Dhabi, and finished third in F2. With little to gain from another F2 season he moved to Japanese Super Formula, a path previously trodden by Pierre Gasly. Dallara’s SF23 chassis is far closer to F1 than its 2018 F2 counterpart, with greater scope for development, though F2’s new chassis and Super Formula’s spec dampers move will shift this dynamic come 2024.

Lawson acknowledges that he “would definitely not” be as prepared for F1 without Super Formula, specifically explaining that he’s gained “a lot more of an understanding of what’s actually going on with the car”.

“One of the biggest steps is getting your head around how the car actually works, and what you need do to make it faster,” he explains. “Super Formula been really good. It’s also faster, so driving a much quicker car, it’s a lot closer to F1.”

Lawson adapted rapidly to racing in Japan and is in contention to win the Super Formula title

Photo by: Masahide Kamio

Outshining two-time defending champion Tomoki Nojiri at Team Mugen, Lawson stunned on his debut at Fuji, adding two more wins since to head into the season-ending double-header at Suzuka second in the standings behind Ritomo Miyata.

Those strong performances in Japan meant Lawson’s name was touted in the F1 paddock as speculation swirled over Nyck de Vries. Though AlphaTauri initially chose the far more experienced Ricciardo when de Vries was dropped after Silverstone, Lawson got over his disappointment quickly and has seized his moment after Ricciardo’s injury.

Lawson narrowly missed Q3 at Monza and finished 11th, feeling a bad start cost him a shot at points. But in Singapore he outqualified team-mate Tsunoda and bumped Verstappen from
Q3 before scoring two points for ninth. He then beat Tsunoda to the flag at Suzuka, although had a tough time in the Qatar heat. 

Reichert is in no doubt Lawson has what it takes to justify a full-time drive in F1, and believes his atypical path has served him well.

“It was a good thing to not directly make the step,” he maintains. “He arrives with a massive amount of experience with a big variation of teams from different cultures. With this whole package, he’s in the best condition to stay there.”

With Ricciardo and Tsunoda confirmed to stay on for 2024, with Lawson reverting to his reserve role, what happens next is largely out of his hands. But that Lawson found himself in the conversation for a 2024 AlphaTauri seat at all is testament to not only being in the right place at the right time, but also his toolkit to make the best of his opportunity. You only get one chance at a first impression.

“I don’t have the time to prove myself in F1,” Lawson states. “I have this very short window now that I have to take advantage of.”

Arguably, he’s done just that.

Lawson impressed AlphaTauri when thrown in at the deep end to replace Ricciardo and has staked a claim for a more permanent F1 berth in future

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool