«Hi Liam, welcome to Formula 1. Oh, by the way, you’ve got a 10-place grid penalty for the sprint race due to an unscheduled engine swap.»
It perhaps is not the way that Liam Lawson had envisaged ahead of his long-awaited full-time debut with RB, but the New Zealander is likely to be not too bothered about the grid drop.
The penalty will come at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas — ironically the race where the driver he is replacing, Daniel Ricciardo, has plentiful support.
Speaking exclusively to Autosport sister site Motorsport-Total.com, Helmut Marko revealed the change, explaining: «The first [race], I think, won’t be relevant because he has an engine penalty. Ten places in the sprint race, so that doesn’t exactly make life easier in Austin.»
Lawson is poised to be measured in every detail as he replaces the popular and colourful Australian, who bowed out in an emotional last hurrah at the Singapore Grand Prix.
There will be no way he can fill the void left by Ricciardo’s personality, which has left a gaping hole in F1, but that’s not Lawson’s job. The 22-year-old’s responsibility now is to ensure that RB remains ahead of Haas in the constructors’ championship and has a strong end of the campaign in preparation for 2025.
In fact, Lawson’s grid drop could even be a blessing in disguise, for it will take the pressure off as he tests himself against team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.
Besides, what’s a low spot on the grid for a sprint race in the grand scheme of things?
Lawson has been playing the role of Red Bull’s reserve driver for 33 months — but for five races where he filled in, quite admirably so, in 2023 when Ricciardo was out with a broken wrist.
Liam Lawson, Reserve Driver, Visa Cash App RB F1 Team
Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images
Lawson had bided his time on the sidelines, travelling to races in the vain hope of getting behind the wheel, taking part in hours of sessions on the team’s simulator, listening to each and every race debrief.
He has played the long game and been rewarded for his loyalty, something which the man who has backed his call up to RB holds in high regard.
Helmut Marko, head of Red Bull Racing’s junior programme, has long pushed for Lawson to replace Ricciardo, whose career had been ailing.
Truth be told, Marko had never recovered his fondness for Ricciardo after taking a dim view of his decision to shake on a new deal with him and the late Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz for 2019, only to then go and sign for Renault.
It was Marko who first spotted Lawson when he was racing in his native New Zealand during the same time of Ricciardo’s defection to Renault.
Marko had gone to watch Red Bull-backed Austrian Lucas Auer in the Toyota Racing Series which used to run for five weeks over January in New Zealand during the summertime.
Speaking on Red Bull’s Talking Bulls podcast, Lawson said: «I guess Helmut was watching because of Lucas racing. I had a really good first weekend. I never thought anything like that would happen.
«Being a Red Bull Junior was something that… I remember, the year before, I raced in F4 in Europe and Jack Doohan was a Red Bull junior at the time, and we tested together somewhere — might have been Hockenheim in Germany.
Liam Lawson, AlphaTauri AT04
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
«I remember seeing him walking around in his Red Bull suit and I remember thinking that was so cool and how cool it would be to be a Red Bull junior.»
Lawson says that soon after his maiden weekend in the series, where he won two out of the three races, he received a call that would change his life forever.
«I got the call up after that first weekend in New Zealand, I found out one or two days after the weekend — I was sitting in a cafe, I remember exactly where I was sitting.
«I remember I couldn’t walk. It was really strange. I got told, and I was obviously pretty emotional but I was like, ‘Dude, I gotta go for a walk’, and I couldn’t really walk properly. It was super weird.
«It was a big achievement because, long story short, being from New Zealand and trying to compete overseas, it’s really, really hard to get the money to compete overseas.
«So we set up, in New Zealand, a group of amazing people that have been behind me, sponsors and investors, the structure to basically get enough money to go to Europe and do a season and try and get recognised by a junior team because without it, there was no chance of getting to F1.
«I did that first season in Europe, and I had a good season, but I didn’t have any call-ups from any teams, and then I just did this championship in New Zealand over the off-season with no plan of what I was doing in 2019, and I got basically picked up at the perfect time, and it saved my career.
«Without it, I had four weeks left in that championship, and then I had no plan after that.»
Lawson has since been forced to play the waiting game before being handed his chance when Ricciardo crashed in second practice in Zandvoort in 2023. While Ricciardo was on the sidelines, Lawson impressed in the Dutch, Italian, Singapore, Japan and Qatar GPs — the highlight being the race at the Marina Bay Circuit where he posted a ninth-placed finish.
He now has his full opportunity to showcase his ability and prove that all the time spent learning from the sidelines was worth it.