Liam Lawson F1 seat: Five reasons why he should have a fulltime drive

Liam Lawson is being widely praised for his performance as Daniel Ricciardo’s Formula 1 stand-in, but the 21-year-old Kiwi hasn’t got a fulltime race contract in his pocket just yet.

Adecision is likely soon: Scuderia AlphaTauri Formula 1 chief executive Peter Bayer says the team will decide its driver lineup for 2024 “in the next few days”. Here are five reasons why Lawson should be in Formula 1 fulltime.

Lawson aced the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, finishing 9th in only his third Formula 1 start, to collect two points. By contrast, full-time AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda hasn’t finished better than 10th since the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in April 2022 – 33 races ago. Lawson was hard on himself after losing a couple of places at the start in Singapore, but he achieved all that could reasonably be expected of a rookie driver in only his second proper F1 race weekend (he was only dropped into the AlphaTauri on the Saturday morning at the Dutch Grand Prix).

Lawson has immediately bettered the efforts of Daniel Ricciardo in his two races before breaking his hand, and those of the hapless Dutchman Nyck de Vries, who was fired by AlphaTauri in July. Yes, the AlphaTauri car has had performance updates, but Lawson is maximising the opportunity he’s been given to make the most of it.

Lawson has improved each Formula 1 weekend he’s participated in, even knocking Max Verstappen out of the top 10 in qualifying for Singapore, to reach Q3 for the first time in his short F1 career. Lawson doesn’t appear to be overwhelmed to reach motorsport’s top category, taking a methodical approach to learning the AlphaTauri car, and is carefully increasing his pace, without doing anything stupid. In Singapore, he stayed on the road and demonstrated robust defence – including against Verstappen – in a race where much more experienced drivers crashed into each other, or the walls.

Logic would suggest this pattern of improvement means there is much more to come from Lawson as he gains more experience, and he would be a safe bet to deliver increasing returns for AlphaTauri as his development continues.

Lawson’s immediate eclipsing of Yuki Tsunoda raises some difficult questions for Red Bull, the owners of the AlphaTauri team. Tsunoda is now in his third season of Formula 1, so it’s fair to ask if he’s reached the ceiling of his potential. Tsunoda has had rotten luck since Lawson joined AlphaTauri, not starting the Italian Grand Prix after his car blew up on the formation lap, then being taken out by Red Bull stablemate Sergio Perez on the opening lap in Singapore. Frustratingly, this makes a direct head-to-head comparison with Lawson over a race distance impossible.

However, it’s unlikely that AlphaTauri will jettison Tsunoda. He’s thought to bring significant financial backing from the team’s engine supplier Honda, and is rumoured to be on the verge of signing a new contract for 2024 at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, his home event.

Aussie larrikin Daniel Ricciardo is a hugely popular figure in the sport, but his return to Formula 1 this season after being booted out of McLaren at the end of 2022 has so far been inconclusive. The timing of his hand-breaking crash in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix deprived the world of Formula 1 a chance to see whether Ricciardo could still summon his magical form of 2014 to 2018, a golden period during which Ricciardo was a regular winner for Red Bull Racing, making the ‘shoey’ – where he’d drink the winner’s champagne from his sweaty race boot- a signature move.

If Ricciardo can regain that kind of performance, AlphaTauri will benefit from having one of the sport’s top drivers, and all the technical experience he brings. But based on the limited evidence so far, that’s not a certainty. Lawson is already delivering results.

Motorsport is one of the central marketing platforms for Austrian energy drinks giant Red Bull. The company’s Junior Team programme plucks young drivers from karting, with the aim of nurturing them up the ladder, to eventually create a Formula 1 World Champion wearing the company’s famous logo.

Red Bull has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting nearly 100 drivers since the programme began in 2001. So far, Sebastian Vettel is the sole Red Bull Junior to become champion (Max Verstappen wasn’t raised on the Red Bull Junior programme – he joined shortly before his first Grand Prix appearance as test driver in 2014). But in the past few years, Red Bull has stopped promoting its Juniors to Formula 1. Mexican veteran Sergio Perez was signed into Red Bull Racing in 2021, and Nyck De Vries for AlphaTauri for this year.

Liam Lawson is currently the most experienced Red Bull Junior without a fulltime seat in Formula 1, and has been passed over twice already. If he isn’t made a fulltime driver for 2024, what is the point of the junior programme?

...or there’s Williams

There could be another option if Lawson doesn’t get a fulltime seat with AlphaTauri: Williams. After dominating Formula 1 for half the 1990s, the British team has been slowly sliding backwards for the past decade, but has new owners, and an ambitious new leader in team principal James Vowles. Williams’ rookie driver Logan Sargeant has been struggling this season, with a string of crashes.

In fact, the American currently sits behind Lawson in the championship standings with zero points to his name- despite starting every race. It’s possible that Williams could fire Sargeant, and negotiate a deal to loan Lawson from Red Bull. This arrangement gives Williams a driver who has already demonstrated huge potential, while solving Red Bull’s dilemma of having three drivers for two seats. Williams has helped rebuild the reputation of its other driver, Alex Albon, who has driven for the team for the past two seasons after being dropped by Red Bull Racing at the end of 2020.

Grand Prix race-winner George Russell was also loaned to Williams by Mercedes for a three-season Formula 1 apprenticeship to develop before being promoted to the main Mercedes team. In Lawson’s case, such an arrangement could also suit Williams, and Red Bull.