Liam Lawson Secures Podium At Silverstone And F1 Reserve Promotion
Jul 4, 2022
It was two good days at the office for young Giltrap Group sponsored Liam Lawson.
First and foremost he gave his Carlin Motorsport team reason to celebrate with a podium at Silverstone, in support of fellow Carlin driver and race winner, Logan Sargeant, over the weekend.
Lawson qualified in fifth, a tough position to fight from on a circuit like Silverstone with overtaking opportunities limited and extremely challenging. And after suffering front wing damage in the sprint race the young Kiwi could only circulate at the rear of the field.
Determined to turn things around, Lawson seized the opportunities that were presented to him and defended superbly to secure his P3 position in the feature race.
“It's very hard to overtake at Silverstone. So, I knew if I didn't make any mistakes then it would be fine. Unfortunately, I did have a massive lock-up with a few laps to go up which really surprised me because it wasn't feeling like I was locking up into that point. So that was a bit of a scare, but once the flat spot started to die down the pace picked up again. A good result honestly, it’s just nice to finally score some points. We haven't really scored properly in a Feature Race since Bahrain so it's nice to finally do that and we keep pushing forwards. The pace has been good for a long time now, so if we can keep that up then all positives.” Said Lawson following the race.
There was an effort for Lawson to attempt an undercut, with a strategy to pitstop earlier and run a harder tyre to outlast the field in the latter stages of the race, but it didn’t come together as planned.
“We went for potentially an undercut, but it just took so long to get the temperature in the hard tyre. I was almost a little bit surprised by that. By the time they came into temp, it wasn't enough, and obviously, these guys boxed a lap later so there was no time to make it work. I think it was the right call at the time we were starting to drop off on the softs.”
Lawson is now sitting fifth in the Formula 2 Championship, but will also step into the position of Red Bull Racing’s Formula 1 reserve driver with immediate effect, following Juri Vips’ dismissal from the team after an alleged racial slur made during a video game stream.
Lawson has been one of Red Bull’s simulator drivers since he debuted in Formula 2 last year and in 2021 was confirmed as a test driver of AlphaTauri, Red Bull’s sister team in F1, at the end of 2021.
“Well Liam Lawson steps into that role, obviously following the Juri Vips announcement,” said Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner at this weekend’s British Grand Prix.