How Lawson stayed afloat in his sudden F1 debut

Amid the early Dutch Grand Prix media sessions, Daniel Ricciardo felt that his surprise Formula 1 return in Hungary had been straight in at the deep end. A day in a Red Bull RB19 and a handful of time in AlphaTauri's simulator served as his preparation as a replacement for Nyck de Vries - the Dutchman ousted at AlphaTauri following the British Grand Prix.

If Ricciardo's return was in at the deep end, Liam Lawson's F1 debut was like being airdropped in the middle of the Atlantic without a floatation device to hand. The news that Ricciardo had broken his metacarpal in a Turn 3 crash in Friday's second practice session, while trying to evade Oscar Piastri's crashed McLaren, prompted fleeting suggestions that de Vries might be pressed back into service.

After all, the Frieslander remains under contract with Red Bull, but AlphaTauri and Helmut Marko felt that it could not roll back on the decision to dispense with de Vries. Lawson, who was in attendance as the official reserve having hotfooted it from his Super Formula duties in Japan, was given the nod on Friday evening.

When the heavens opened in Zandvoort on Saturday morning Lawson probably stared out of the window and figured that, as debuts come, this would be a rather difficult proposition. He'd have to get used to the AT04 on an old-school wet track lined with gravel, and getting beached on the first exploratory tour would be a significant hit to his preparation.

Thankfully, the Kiwi - F1's first New Zealander since Brendon Hartley raced for the same team in 2017 and 2018 - largely maintained a trouble-free run in the early part of the session as he got acquainted with all of the buttons, switches, and dials at the wheel. Sure, there was a mistake towards the end that caused a red flag; Lawson touched the kerb on the exit of Turn 13 and was pitched into a spin, but he did well to keep the car out of the wall. Better yet, he kept the engine running and tiptoed back to the pits once he'd turned the car the right way, minimising the disruption.

Qualifying went largely as expected. Lawson was dumped out in Q1 and over a second away from Valtteri Bottas in 19th, but conditions were still very poor following early-afternoon rain. In the circumstances of his debut, anything beyond the final row of the grid would have vastly exceeded expectations.

Lawson was firmly in at the deep end for his debut, and qualifying last was ultimately expected given the conditions

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Assessing his own efforts, Lawson reckoned that he could have pushed a bit harder during a lap on his second set of inters, having expected conditions on-track to be worse.

"I think the first run we weren't too far off, and still improving," he noted. "And then just the second set it rained again, and I expected it to get a bit slower, but obviously it didn't. So just getting used to this inter tyre, and these conditions."

The race posed a completely different challenge, as all of Lawson's running had been in wet conditions thus far. He reckoned that he'd need to "relearn everything" in the event that the race was dry, having yet to get a feel for the suite of slick tyres. Coached by race engineer Pierre Hamelin, Lawson did all of the usual pre-flight checks on the grid - finding the clutch bite point, rotating dials, et cetera, but perhaps the nerves kicked in a little for the first pull-away.

Even the first lap of the race with dry tyres had been conducted in semi-wet conditions, so getting the lines right around the Zandvoort circuit would add to the challenge. His pace on the softs sat at around 0.6-0.7s slower than Tsunoda's prior to the safety car

The AT04 wobbled a little as it edged forward from its grid slot, shivers running through its spine, as Lawson's inputs bounced close to the anti-stall mode. Nonetheless, Hamelin felt that the rookie's clutch juggling had been up to par, and instructed the fourth driver he's worked with in the space of a year to start weaving to build up tyre temperature.

Watching a rookie cope with all of the processes of getting the tyres up to temperature on the formation lap is fascinating, and although there's a surplus of information for us mere mortals to contend with, Lawson complies with each. The final burnouts on the way to the grid require a series of inputs not dissimilar to the Konami cheat code, but the right combination is pushed and there's just enough space for Lawson to get his rear tyres spinning.

Lawson's getaway at the lights was much more like it. He followed Bottas down the right-hand side into Turn 1, which initially appeared to pay off as Yuki Tsunoda got baulked by Zhou Guanyu on their route to the outside line of Tarzanbocht. The bragging rights over Tsunoda lasted about a corner, as the outside line of Turn 1 became the inside for Turn 2, and the Japanese kept enough minimum speed on the low-line of the quarter-pipe Turn 3 to stay ahead.

Then there was a snap; Lawson made the faintest of touches with a small corner of grass on the path to Turn 7, and had to correct. Conditions were worsening and, after making it through the Turn 11/12 chicane, Lawson immediately called out for intermediates.

Lawson had no dry running under his belt in the AlphaTauri until lap one of the grand prix

Photo by: Erik Junius

Hamelin told his young charge to stay out, but Lawson's call proved to be the right one - or rather would have been, if an outrageously slow double-stack with Tsunoda didn't follow. The wait was agonising as the adjustments to the #22 car's front wing took an alarmingly long time, leaving Lawson to spend about 20 seconds in the box longer than the fastest stop in that cycle. The pain worsened as he copped a 10-second penalty for impeding Kevin Magnussen in the pitlane.

It was less of a disadvantage compared to those who didn't stop at all but, as the track began to quickly desaturate, Lawson needed to make up the time overtaking the dry-tyre runners while looking after his front-left tyre. It was beginning to wear significantly and, as early as the end of the seventh lap, Lawson felt that it had already reached its peak.

Hamelin told him to keep going and remain cautious with it, but it emerged that the front-left tyre was simply going through a graining phase. Lawson was free to push more to revive a flagging tyre, while also attempting to keep Lando Norris at bay as the McLaren driver had started to catch up after pitting two laps later.

But Lawson didn't fight too hard into Turn 1 at the start of the ninth lap, leaving quite a wide berth. He was told not to worry about keeping tabs on Norris and instead focus on maintaining his own pace, which he was told was not a million miles away from Tsunoda's efforts. This came as Lawson started to report the ever-drying line, prompting a stop for slicks at the end of lap 10 - where there were more pitlane delays as he served the earlier penalty.

From there, he simply had to focus on getting his lines right with the drying conditions. This was still new to him, as even the first lap of the race with dry tyres had been conducted in semi-wet conditions, so getting the lines right around the Zandvoort circuit would add to the challenge. His pace on the softs sat at around 0.6-0.7s slower than Tsunoda's prior to the safety car, although this preceded a tyre offset as Lawson called in for the medium compound when Logan Sargeant hit the wall at Turn 8.

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When full racing speeds resumed, Lawson was on occasion close to Tsunoda's soft-tyre pace and could get to within 0.3-0.4s a lap slower than his more-experienced team-mate. But this was offset by laps that could be over a second slower, and Tsunoda's outrageously consistent pace in the mid-1m16s acted as a true benchmark for Lawson to match up to. It wasn't a surprise to see mistakes, as this was the 21-year-old's first experience of dealing with the medium tyre, but he'd soon begin to bring his pace down until another stop for the softs.

He'd also diced with Charles Leclerc before the Ferrari driver retired with damage, another added footnote to add to Lawson's debut efforts.

"That was quite eventful, to be fair!" recounted Lawson. "I think he was struggling a lot on the softs. At the time I passed him, he just passed me back down the straight.

Battling with Leclerc's hobbled Ferrari was an enjoyable experience for the rookie

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

"It was a little bit frustrating, but obviously, it's good to get experience. I feel like I had experience of every situation in that race with multiple pitstops, wheel-to-wheel racing, rain, dry. It was a good learning experience.”

At this point Tsunoda's tyres had aged considerably, and the pace had fallen into the 1m17s as the stint drew longer. He was hanging on for the late-race downpour, while Lawson could consistently sit in the 1m15s on new tyres before the late-race downpour. It's fair to say that the pitstop for softs had put Lawson right at the back of the field and a lap down, and the deluge earned the New Zealander a reprieve. But the move he threw on Bottas at the restart - when visibility was still quite poor - was impressive and opportunistic.

Lawson had to blend out the throttle on the restart after drawing alongside the Finn at the line but had to fold behind the Alfa Romeo driver into the first corner. Bottas was slow coming out of Turn 3 having gone slightly too high, giving Lawson the chance to snatch past at the inside of the Turn 5 kink and retain 14th by the time the field came around to Turn 7.

"You always look back, and I'll reflect on this. And there's definitely things I would have liked to do better, but I think I'm reasonably satisfied" Liam Lawson

For a race with zero preparation, Lawson's willingness to get stuck in had been impressive. With the full gamut of practice sessions in Monza, where he will replace the recovering Ricciardo once more, Lawson should be able to nail down the overall race pace where he fell short of Tsunoda's benchmark. Becoming comfortable with the slick tyres will be key, as long as the rain holds off in northern Italy, as his exposure to them in Zandvoort was cursory at best.

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"In the second half, I think I started to get a bit of feeling on the softs in clean air and then on the inters as well," Lawson reflected. "I felt a lot more comfortable than yesterday. You always look back, and I'll reflect on this. And there's definitely things I would have liked to do better, but I think I'm reasonably satisfied with that.”

Ultimately, the difference between race weekends will be expectation. Lawson had a free pass to make gallons of mistakes on the Dutch coast, and that he didn't is a credit to his temperament, but the microscope will focus in on him a little more at the Temple of Speed - and with good reason.

This is an opportunity for him to show, in standard conditions over a full weekend, that he could be a disruptor in the Ricciardo-Tsunoda line-up for 2024. To beat his fellow Antipodean to a race seat, or even displace the vastly improved Tsunoda, Lawson must demonstrate a tangible level of growth over his surprise Dutch Grand Prix call-up. Monza is another venue he knows from his time in F2 and F3, but there will be a sprinkling of added pressure to contend with.

Rather than be cast into the middle of the ocean and disappear down the Mariana Trench, Lawson has shown that he can do more than just tread water in difficult conditions. The next step? Keep swimming, don't drown - and close that gap to Tsunoda. Lawson should be more than capable of managing those simple aims - and could even deliver more, if the car's up to it.

Lawson will remain in place of Ricciardo at Monza, where he must now aim to close the gap to Tsunoda

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