With the news now out that Liam Lawson will drive for RB for the remainder of the 2024 Formula 1 season, who is the driver that has displaced Daniel Ricciardo?
Born on February 11 2002, Lawson, like the majority of his racing contemporaries, began in karting, before graduating to single-seater racing in his native New Zealand in 2015.
In just two years, Lawson had moved across to Europe, competing in the ADAC Formula 4 Championship, before moving back to New Zealand to drive in the Castrol Toyota Racing Series, beating current IndyCar driver and countryman Marcus Armstrong to the title.
2019 would be the year Lawson planted his foot firmly on the Grand Prix ladder, entering Formula 3 with MP Motorsport, finishing 11th in the championship. It would be this year that he was made part of the Red Bull Junior Team, and followed up his debut F3 season with a year at Hitech, finishing fifth in the standings after three victories in a season truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021 would be perhaps his busiest year, juggling his first season in Formula 2 with a successful stint in DTM with Red Bull AF Corse, the latter ending in agonising fashion.
Entering the final round at the Norisring with a 19-point lead in a three-way battle for the championship, he suffered damage in a first-lap crash with title rival Kelvin van der Linde, hindering his chances, ultimately losing out to Maximilian Götz.
An angry Lawson accused van der Linde of being “the dirtiest driver [he] ever raced against,” an “idiot” and decided he would no longer harbour any ambitions to remain in the category.
Impressing in F2 and Super Formula
In F2, he took victory on his debut, fending off Jehan Daruvala in the Bahrain Sprint. He would follow this up with podiums in the Feature as well as in Jeddah. He would take a superb win in Monaco, in which he made a daring overtake on Oscar Piastri at the Rascasse corner, but would be disqualified for an illegal throttle map. A string of points finishes meant he would finish the year a more-than-creditable ninth.
That summer, he got his first taste of F1, driving a Red Bull RB7 up the famous Goodwood hill at the Festival of Speed. Franz Tost, then-Team Principal of AlphaTauri, handed him a chance to drive for the team at the end-of-season Abu Dhabi Young Driver Test.
2022 would be a season of progress, taking four wins in F2 on his way to third in the championship, as well as becoming Red Bull’s F1 Reserve Driver after Finnish driver Juri Vips was fired after uttering a racial slur on a Twitch gaming stream, which Lawson had coincidentally also been on.
He would make his first FP1 appearance with AlphaTauri in Belgium, which he followed up with another FP1 stint in Mexico, before taking part in FP1 at the season-ender in Abu Dhabi with Red Bull. He would then once more drive for the junior team in the end-of-season tests.
Now most definitely a hot property on the racing scene, Lawson took his talents to Japan and the Super Formula series with Team Mugen.
After a debut win in Fuji, he would take a further two, narrowly missing out on the title. He would choose to not continue in the championship, rather instead concentrating on his reserve driver role, which, during that year, enabled him to climb the latter further and make it into Formula 1.
2023: A surprise F1 debut
After Ricciardo broke his hand in FP1 for the Dutch Grand Prix, Lawson was drafted in, and in a chaotic race that saw heavy rainfall – during which he momentarily untapped himself from Max Verstappen – managed to finish 13th after qualifying in last, ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda. In doing so, he became the 10th New Zealander to race in Formula 1.
He would finish in 11th at the following race in Italy, and then, at Singapore, he would out-qualify Verstappen, knocking the champion out of Q2.
Starting 10th, Lawson maintained enough race pace to secure his first F1 points.
With another 11th place, again ahead of Tsunoda, at Suzuka, his final race of the year would come at Qatar, by far his worst performance, with a spin in the Sprint and finishing the last of the classified runners in the Grand Prix. With Ricciardo’s hand now fully healed, he vacated the seat but left such an impression that ever since, his name has been firmly in the conversation of future drivers.
2024: A second chance in F1
With Ricciardo’s form suffering in 2024, speculation began to grow as to whether the Australian veteran would keep his seat until the end of the season, with further gossip as to whether there would be a driver merry-go-round with Sergio Perez also being fired from Red Bull. In any eventuality, Lawson’s name was in the mix, and with Perez’s future secured and confirmed, it was now a possibility that he would be drafted into RB with a number of races left to run.
With an emotional Ricciardo exiting Singapore last Sunday and rumours running as high as its skyline, Lawson was less waiting in the wings but more dangling his foot onto the main stage. Regardless of people’s thoughts on the harshness of the treatment of Ricciardo, Thursday’s announcement thrusts Lawson in front of the audience for another cameo just in time before the curtain call, and he will know it is a huge opportunity to get himself onto the top of the bill for 2025.
READ MORE: Liam Lawson to replace Daniel Ricciardo at RB for remainder of F1 2024
