Liam Lawson admits it was “disappointing” to seek out out he wouldn’t race for AlphaTauri subsequent 12 months, however is set to safe a full-time place on the System 1 grid.
The Tremendous System racer was drafted into AlphaTauri on the Dutch Grand Prix after Daniel Ricciardo was injured in a crash throughout apply. Lawson will proceed to drive for the staff this weekend as Ricciardo shouldn’t be able to return in Qatar.
Nevertheless over the past race weekend at Suzuka AlphaTauri introduced Ricciardo will stay alongside Yuki Tsunoda of their driver line-up for 2024.
“Clearly my aim is to be in F1 full-time, in order a lot because it’s disappointing, it’s nonetheless my aim, and it’s now about attempting to guarantee that I could make that occur sooner or later,” mentioned Lawson.
He has impressed the staff together with his performances throughout his 4 races thus far, by which time he scored AlphaTauri’s greatest results of the season thus far with ninth place within the Singapore Grand Prix.
“Proper now, I’ve nonetheless bought this chance to maintain attempting to indicate one thing, and I’ll attempt to benefit from it,” mentioned Lawson. “For now, so long as this lasts, I’ll concentrate on it.”
Lawson expects Ricciardo might be again within the automotive earlier than the ultimate spherical of the Tremendous System sequence, which clashes with an F1 race.
“As soon as I step again from F1, it’ll be full concentrate on getting ready for the ultimate spherical of the Tremendous System championship at Suzuka on the weekend of the Mexican Grand Prix,” Lawson continued. “It’ll be very totally different adjusting again to the automotive, however it’s actually been helpful having pushed so many laps at Suzuka all through the grand prix weekend.”
He’ll face a very powerful problem this weekend as he has by no means raced on the Losail Worldwide Circuit earlier than and can solely have a single hour of apply to arrange as it’s a dash race occasion.
“That makes it fairly difficult, particularly in my state of affairs,” Lawson mentioned. “I’ve by no means pushed right here, so going into the dash weekend might be extra-tough.
“I drove the Qatar observe within the simulator on the finish of final week. It’s very quick, a really high-speed circuit and fairly distinctive, and I’ve not seen many tracks prefer it, as there’s just one low-speed nook in the entire observe. The remainder is simply fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh gear, so I feel it’s going to be thrilling to drive.
“With just one free apply session, we drivers must know the place to enhance as a result of it’ll get sooner at night time when it’s a lot cooler, and we have to know precisely how one can extract the whole lot out of the automotive. I’m anticipating it to be more durable than the races we’ve simply achieved.”
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2023 Qatar Grand Prix
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