Liam Lawson has revealed he will race in F1 with number 30 as his permanent number when he returns to Austin, inspired by his “idol” karting.
The New Zealander said his idol also raced with the number 30 in his own junior career, which led to him doing the same throughout his own career.
In his appearances as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement last season, Lawson raced with his assigned number 40 in all five races he entered.
But now that he has been signed to replace him until the end of the year, Lawson has been given free choice of number from those remaining available between 2 and 99 – with number 1 reserved only for the reigning world champion and the 17th having been removed in honor of the late Jules Bianchi.
For the RB F1 driver, his favorite number, 30, was still available, so he chose this option.
"I’m going to run with number 30 because that’s the number I’ve been running with since I was eight years old," Lawson revealed in an Instagram video.
“It wasn’t really the very first number I drove with, it was 18, but my first year of karting I joined a team, and there was a guy who looked after of me, who became like my hero, my idol, when I was a kid in karting, and he was racing with the number 30 – so I chose the number 30 because of him.”
“He taught me everything about karting when I was younger and I kept that number until today. And I also told him that I was going to wear our number in Formula 1 and he’s great thrilled !”
Note that Lawson did not wish to reveal – for the moment anyway – who this famous idol is!
