It was almost impossible to avoid the news across all social media platforms – the honey badger has found his way back to the F1 honey pot.
But there was a similar theme cropping up almost universally across all Daniel posts with a quick scroll down through the comments:
“Where’s Lawson?”
“What does this mean for Liam Lawson”
“Surely you give Liam a chance.”
While on face value this would look like the Kiwi being overlooked, for a variety of reasons I think this not only has very little to no impact on his future chances of a race seat, but may even be the best thing for him at this stage of his career.
Let’s get the first, and obvious positive out of the way - the Alpha Tauri car in 2023 is a shopping trolley dressed up as a race car.
They’re currently bottom of the constructor standings and have barely fired a shot all season.
Yuki Tsunoda has shown promising moments this season, only to miss out on the points-paying positions more often than not.
Yes, Liam would gain race experience in a genuine F1 car by being given the seat but as the unfortunate saga of Nyck de Vries has shown, it wouldn’t come with many upsides performance-wise.
The other main positive for not getting the nod mid-season, is it gives him a chance to see out his stellar Super Formula campaign in Japan.
He’s currently 7 points adrift of series leader Ritomo Miyata, but arguably could be the favourite to claim the title if he strings a solid series of results together.
Closing out a competitive campaign will bring him invaluable experience that he wouldn’t get by floundering at the back of a field in a shopping trolley.
Looking at this from Red Bull’s perspective, it’s also a win-win situation.
Yes, bringing Lawson in at this stage might be an effective shot to nothing to give him F1 experience, but it’s equally a shot to nothing for Red Bull to re-evaluate Daniel Ricciardo’s abilities in a car.
They clearly believe his poor season and a half at McLaren are an outlier and they feel the eight-time Gran Prix winner still has something to offer after posting competitive times at a tyre testing session following the British Gran Prix.
Putting him in an uncompetitive car throws down a challenge to the Aussie and if he can suddenly unlock performance in that car and outperform an impressive Tsunoda, then Ricciardo could feasibly come back into the picture for the Red Bull second seat alongside world champion Max Verstappen.
It also gives Red Bull a perfect opportunity to give Tsunoda a solid yardstick of which to measure his talent, and see whether the Japanese driver could prove a realistic Red Bull driver option beyond 2024.
On Red Bull, the other thing worth remembering here is that for all the Drive to Survive posturing, Christian Horner is not the person you need to read between the lines when it comes to their stable of drivers – that ultimate responsibility lies with the team’s highly respected advisor, Helmut Marko.
Marko is the one who clearly hasn’t rated Nyck de Vries all season, and has regularly made comments in recent weeks indicating the writing was on the wall for his swift dismissal.
Lo and behold, de Vries didn’t last much longer.
The same Marko has regularly heaped praise on Liam Lawson, and indicated the best place for him right now is fighting for the Super Formula title.
Marko rates the Japanese championship as a better feeder series into Formula 1 than Formula 2 – which should give Lawson the edge over his fellow Red Bull academy drivers, namely Ayumu Iwasa.
And let’s not forget - Lawson is still the Red Bull reserve driver. A role he’s previously been sharing with Daniel Ricciardo, juggling around his Super Formula commitments.
Now that Ricciardo is in a seat full time for the remainder of the season, that responsibility will lie solely with Lawson once his time in Japan is over.
He will get track time with either Red Bull or Alpha Tauri this season, even if only in the mandated free practice sessions.
But with four Red Bull affiliated teams on the grid, there is a favourable and statistical chance that he may well get the opportunity to fill in at a Gran Prix before the end of the year – a situation that benefited Nyck de Vries on his way to his now short-lived time at Alpha Tauri.
So as much as seeing Lawson on the grid in 2023 would delight his supporters, waiting until 2024, when firmer opportunities will present itself, may be the all-round better outcome.
And who knows, the Alpha Tauri – which will be running under a new name next season – may pull its act together in time, and resemble a competitive car once again.
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