Liam Lawson admits he is very much looking forward to making his Red Bull Racing debut for the full season, his first in F1. Max Verstappen’s new teammate promises to use his month of January to prepare for this opportunity.
“It’s something I’ve never had and it’s exciting.” Lawson said. “I don’t really know what to do with myself, to be honest, because I have so much time to think about it now. I almost want to get on with it right away.”
“It will be important. What matters is how we use this time. We will start early, I’m sure by January we will already be preparing. It’s just about making the most of it the best before the Bahrain tests.”
The pressure will be maximum for the New Zealander, but he also sees advantages in starting in a top team: “There are definitely pros and cons to it. I think in my head I only see the pros and for me it’s super exciting, but I know it’s going to be extremely difficult.”
“There are a lot of tracks I’ve never been to. But being in a car that just won the world championship, as a driver, it’s extremely exciting to know that you’re going into a competitive situation, but I am fully aware of the difficulty of the task.”
As he will team up with a four-time world champion, Lawson reveals he has already learned a lot from Verstappen: “For sure, I don’t even think he realized it. As a reserve for several years, I started spending a lot more time with Red Bull than with RB.”
“As a reservist, I watched all the sessions, I listened to his debriefs, I listened to his communication during the sessions and I was just observing in the background. So I spent a lot of time observing how he did things , how he communicated with the team, his comments.”
In any case, he is well aware of the challenge that awaits him and the difficulty of teaming up with the Dutchman: “I’ve driven the car for the last couple of years and done some testing, and I can say the car is very aggressive, and it takes a lot of confidence to drive it, honestly.”
“And I think that’s where Max is obviously extremely confident as a driver. But the most important thing is he’s the best in the world right now. It’s always going to be very, very difficult to “face the best, and that’s probably the main reason why everyone has had a hard time facing him until now.”
On the subject of a particularly delicate Red Bull to approach, Lawson admits that he discussed it a lot with Alex Albon after his ouster from Red Bull: “When we were in DTM, he probably got tired of me asking him all the questions. But I did, I asked him a lot of questions about Red Bull, what it was like in the team and on the car.”
“I know the car was different back then, but honestly the features are probably pretty similar. I’ve driven the car and I can say it’s aggressive and it’s probably pretty difficult to drive. It told me it’s all about trust and with Max, that’s obviously what you need.”
Lawson is happy to represent New Zealand in Formula 1, despite the difficulties he faced coming from such a distant country: “I think to reach a high level in whatever sport or whatever industry you choose.”
“As a New Zealander, I feel like it’s always more difficult in a small country. I personally didn’t know that F1 was inaccessible, I was always lucky enough to believe that I could do it. arrived and I was lucky that my family was supportive, but looking back, it’s a little more difficult.”
As he reaches the pinnacle of world motorsport, Lawson recalls his early days in karting, and the difficulties he encountered at the time: “The first 12 months I spent in karting, I always finished dead last. I was driving alone at the back of the pack.”
“I was trying to convince my father to buy a better engine because I was convinced it was bad, and finally he did. We installed it for the qualifying session of this big event and we we immediately found ourselves in the lead, and that’s when karting got serious.”
“My parents sacrificed everything for my childhood. Even to race in karting, to be in the lead in New Zealand, it’s still very expensive. My parents don’t have a house right now because I growing up karting and leaving home My brothers and sisters, my whole family sacrificed a lot for me to be able to do this.
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