Liam Lawson

Will Lawson prove Red Bull was right to drop Ricciardo? Six US GP talking points

Formula 1

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The second of three races in the United States this season, Formula 1 headed to Austin, Texas for the United States Grand Prix – the only one of the three at a permanent circuit.

But to the disappointment of many who will be attending at Circuit of the Americas this weekend, Daniel Ricciardo will not be racing after being dropped by RB and Red Bull in favour of Liam Lawson.

Will Lawson carry on his strong form from last season and show that Red Bull have made the right call to let Ricciardo go?

Ricciardo out, Lawson in

The more than 100,000 fans who will flock to Circuit of the Americas this weekend will have purchased their tickets months in advance eager to see their favourite drivers.

Max Verstappen. Lewis Hamilton. Charles Leclerc. Fernando Alonso. And even Daniel Ricciardo, who has become an adopted son of sorts for Austin due to his popularity from Drive to Survive and his unashamed appreciation of Texan culture. But any dreams of seeing Ricciardo racing this weekend died harder than a Dallas Cowboys playoff run when Red Bull decided to dump the affable Australian in favour of Liam Lawson, who will assume the second RB seat alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the remainder of the season.

While Red Bull’s handling of Ricciardo’s departure appears to have upset virtually everyone, Lawson’s worthiness of a seat on the grid should not be questioned. He more than held his own over the handful of rounds he was able to compete standing in for Ricciardo last year following his wrist injury. The 22-year-old now has an excellent opportunity to show Red Bull he deserves to be racing for RB full time in 2025.

But regardless, Red Bull may still have to face a weekend of being treated as heels by the COTA crowd for ditching their favourite driver. Christian Horner and RB team principal Laurent Mekies will no doubt facing many uncomfortable questions this weekend – but at least they had three weeks to prepare for it.

Will Verstappen continue FIA boycott?

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Singapore, 2024
Verstappen chose his words carefully in Singapore
The headlines for the last round in Singapore were dominated as much by what occurred off track as what took place on it. World champion Verstappen started the weekend earning an unusual penalty from the event’s stewards for swearing in the Thursday press conference, requiring him to complete ‘some work of public interest’, and spent the rest of the weekend refusing to answer any questions in the FIA press conferences beyond just a single sentence or a few words.

The punishment came just days after FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem expressing his disapproval of F1’s drivers liberally swearing over team radio clips played out by FOM’s world feed broadcast. Verstappen, known for his exceedingly low tolerance level for anything he considers as nonsense, appeared to take objection to what some suggested was the latest clampdown on drivers by the governing body.

Despite keeping his mouth mostly shut in the FIA conferences, Verstappen was more than willing to speak to the media outside of the confines of the FIA’s press room, indicating that it was an effective boycott of his obligations to the FIA rather than the media as a whole. Will the world champion continue to stonewall the governing body this weekend?

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More points up for grabs for Norris

Sprint race start, Circuit of the Americas, 2023
Every lap of last year’s sprint race was led by Verstappen
With six grands prix remaining in the longest ever Formula 1 season, Lando Norris is still 52 points adrift of championship leader Verstappen, despite the Red Bull driver not having won a grand prix since Spain back in June.

Norris has won two of the last four rounds since the summer break, including beating Verstappen by a comfortable margin last time out in Singapore. Norris and McLaren will remain favourites heading into COTA, but this could prove a critical weekend for Norris in his pursuit of the world champion.

For the second consecutive season, the United States Grand Prix is a sprint round, with a 100km race to be held on Saturday before Sunday’s grand prix. That means there is a maximum of 33 points available for Norris to potentially add to his tally over this weekend – but he will only gain one extra on Verstappen should he win both races and the Red Bull driver finish second.

Last year’s event at COTA became infamous for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc both being disqualified after the grand prix for excessive plank wear. However, unlike last year, teams are allowed to make important set up changes after the sprint race on Saturday morning, which should ensure that there’s no recurrence of such an incident this time around.

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Easy does it?

A recurring theme of the last few months has been the complete lack of any full Safety Car interventions – something last seen in the Canadian Grand Prix way back in early June. Aside from two Virtual Safety Car appearances in Austria and Baku, there has not been a single Safety Car intervention over the last nine rounds – including at Singapore, where the race ran entirely green for the first time in its history.

Safety Car,Miami, 2024
The Safety Car hasn’t been seen much this year
Although this strange anomaly for modern Formula 1 appears to reflect the immense skill and race craft of the current gird and their ability to avoid incidents, Fernando Alonso – the most experienced driver in the sport’s history – offered a different theory for why there have been so few incidents during races over the second half of the season.

“These cars are not easy to drive, but I think the problem of these cars as well is to extract 100%,” Alonso said.

“So if you drive at 90%, sometimes you are faster because you don’t put the platform in an inconvenient angle or ride heights. You are not pushing the limits, and it’s where everything falls apart. So sometimes driving at 90% is fast.

“That’s why sometimes in the races, because we all drive at 90%, we have to take care of the tyres, the fuel economy, all these kind of things, we don’t see too many problems and we don’t see too many safety cars or accidents.”

Alonso’s theory makes a lot of sense, given how few mistakes we’re seeing from drivers during races. But Formula 1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport where its drivers have their skills tested to their limits. If backing off is the key to going fast, then that is not what drivers – and especially the fans – want to see.

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Pushing the limits

Logan Sargeant, Williams and Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Circuit of the Americas, 2023
Track limits should be tightened up this year
Fans rejoice – COTA is finally another circuit where track limits are regularly a problem for drivers after several rounds without them being a headache for everyone.

Last year, Verstappen lost a potential pole position in Friday’s grand prix qualifying after he ran wide at the penultimate corner, dropping him from what would have been first on the grid to sixth and handing Charles Leclerc the top spot. In the grand prix itself, there was a post-race right of review requested by Haas over several instances of alleged track limits breaches in the race that were not recorded by race control. The request was rejected by the FIA.

This year, there will hopefully be fewer scenes like that after the positive improvements to track limits made at other circuits such as the Red Bull Ring. As well as a significant repaving to a large part of the circuit – again – COTA will reportedly reduce kerb sizes in line with other circuits this season and a strip of resin coated gravel has also been placed at the exit of turn 11, leading onto the back straight.

Will these help to reduce the problems with track limits from last year? Drivers as well as fans will be hoping so.

Sauber seeking a point

Over the break between Singapore and this weekend’s race, Sauber passed the unfortunate milestone of a full calendar year since Sauber scored their most recent world championship points in the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix. Over the final five rounds of 2023 and the first 18 rounds of this season, neither Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu have been able to finish in the top ten once.

The team have consistently had the slowest car on raw pace for the vast majority of the season and record high reliability so far in 2024 has left them little opportunity to snipe a point if cars ahead retire at any point.

After the last race in Singapore, where Zhou used clever DRS tactics to help his team mate beat Pierre Gasly – albeit for only 16th place – team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi insisted his team was “not out of the fight” for points over the end of the season.

“We are here, maximising everything we have on track together with our drivers, our technical partners, and our remote garage, who supported our trackside engineers brilliantly,” he said. “We’ve made a step forward compared to the past, and we will continue to push.”

Can Sauber get any closer to snapping their pointless streak this weekend?

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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27 comments on “Will Lawson prove Red Bull was right to drop Ricciardo? Six US GP talking points”

  1. Ricciardo out, Lawson in – I understand how the COTA attendance may feel about Ricciardo not participating, but ultimately a fully justified in-season change, given he failed to show his worth for a main team promotion.
    I’m positive Lawson can show his worth for a full-time drive again as he did last year.

    Will Verstappen continue FIA boycott? – I certainly hope he won’t & this lengthy interval should’ve been long enough to clarify the matter with FIA.

    More points up for grabs for Norris – Yes, but the same is true for everyone, so being able to maximize all 34 points available isn’t a foregone conclusion.

    Easy does it? – Another critical factor behind this unusually long SC-free streak is the average amount of retirements per race, which varies between 1 & 2 for the most part, not to mention retirements mostly happen in the pit lane rather than on trackside, which also affects.

    Pushing the limits – Things should be better this year like in Austria, & hopefully, reality will also prove this way.

    Sauber seeking a point – I lost hope for them achieving a single point a little while ago.

    1. notagrumpyfan
      14th October 2024, 8:31

      More points up for grabs for Norris – Yes, but the same is true for everyone, so being able to maximize all 34 points available isn’t a foregone conclusion.

      The role of Piastri has become even more important to Norris’ pursuit of the WDC.
      Piastri (often as fast as Norris) should not just allow Norris to win, but also being his rearguard around the pitstops, and ideally finish ahead of Verstappen as well.

      1. Indeed

    2. I’m similarly positive Lawson will show himself to be competent and nothing more. Time shall tell. But it’s nice to see this question being made the title for an article for 37th time.

      Sauber won’t score a point the entire season.

      Max boycott: I hope so, but yawn…

    3. Hopefully the track owners have or are going to innovate the roads connecting the circuit to the highway.

  2. Everyone’s taking a stab at the Cowboys

  3. Going to be interesting.

    I’m betting RBR will have spent the break analysing absolutely everything and have probably found a few things that have affected their performance. Pretty hard to write them off.
    On the flip side, the pressure is on Lando to win everything, and I’m not sure he’s consistent enough. There’s no doubt he’s fast but like Charles Leclerc is prone to making silly mistakes when pushing to the limit. I’m kinda expecting him to slip up in qualifying and end up on the second row (or worse) in one or other of the qualy sessions.

    If the McLaren pair can pull a couple of 1,2’s this weekend, then I’d say they’re in with a chance at the WDC, but it’s a very very long shot at this stage.

  4. Will Lawson prove Red Bull was right to drop Ricciardo?

    That isn’t really the question, the proper question is “Had Ricciardo failed to justify his place in that seat” and the answer to that question is, yes he had failed to justify his place in that seat.

    Lawson is merely the next driver on the conveyor belt, and he too needs to justify his presence in the seat.

    1. Good point, regardless of how well or badly Liam drives, that doesn’t change the argument that DR wasn’t getting enough out of the car. Worryingly, as I started to type this reply, I couldn’t remember Lawson’s first name, and for a moment I was about to type Nigel.

  5. Coventry Climax
    14th October 2024, 11:09

    I agree with the things pointed out by @Jerejj and @SteveP

    As far as I’m concerned, there’s more:

    However, unlike last year, teams are allowed to make important set up changes after the sprint race on Saturday morning, which should ensure that there’s no recurrence of such an incident this time around.

    The only thing ensuring such incidents to not happen, is teams getting it right. While I know the teams had to make a best ‘average guess’ last time out, and right after the only practice session, there is no real relation there, where making mistakes is concerned. Actually, you could also say teams now get twice the opportunity to mess it up.
    It is the resurfacing of the track -and whether that’s been successful grip and bump-wise- that is most responsible for unpredictable plank wear.

    Then with sprint races, the dynamics on tyres are different. So also depending on the new track surface, for the half distance sprint, how certain cars -and drivers- handle tyres might be less of a thing, and play into the hands of some.

  6. These talking points are largely irrelevant compared to the issue raised above: has Red Bull managed to recover its form?

    They need to be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes to take the fight to McLaren, in which case Verstappen’s superior form should be enough to stave off any threat from Norris through the end of the season. Norris has wasted so many opportunities this year, it’s hard to imagine him suddenly getting things together for the final set of races. But it’s also not impossible, so he still has a realistic chance at the title. And if Norris keeps winning races and Verstappen ends up behind the likes of Leclerc, Hamilton, and Piastri things in the championship table can turn around quite quickly.

    It’s quite inconceivable that Red Bull gets back ahead in the WCC. But if they also lose the WDC after such a dominant start to the season, this campaign has to rank as one of the biggest flubs in F1 history.

    1. Indeed, especially since verstappen also performed better than norris so far, so losing with the best driver and starting with a dominant car is really bad, if I recall it almost happened with brawn gp in 2009, I’m guessing at least button drove better than vettel and their start was very dominant.

      1. Jonathan Parkin
        14th October 2024, 12:58

        Brawn couldn’t upgrade their car as much as the others because of the lack of budget iirc

        1. Yes, the F1 Beyond the Grid podcast with the Brawn-then-Mercedes leadership is quite interesting. They were having sleepless nights over something happening to one of the cars because there was just nothing in reserve; either physically or financially.

  7. Red Bull was right to drop Ricciardo because he was too old to race for the junior team. To make matters worse, based on his performances, he does not seem good enough to hold on to the seat either.

    1. Yes, both are good points, probably a junior driver could’ve got another year to see if he could get closer to tsunoda’s level, who’s perceived to not be good enough to move up to red bull, but since ricciardo wasn’t a junior and lawson had been good enough to deserve a full season their decision makes sense.

    2. One could argue he would have performed much better in the RBR though and it’s almost a guarantee he would have done better than Perez since he always like a similar setup to Max while Checo hates that setup. The problem was that Checo brings so much money, RBR really wants to keep him in the seat, which is why you won’t see Yuki or LL in his seat next year.

  8. It’s been a long wait since the last race. A little late, but I came up with an idea for a feature to fill the void. It could be on the other two race winners with eight wins – Denny Hulme and Jacky Ickx.

  9. a strip of resin coated gravel has also been placed at the exit of turn 11, leading onto the back straight.

    Resin coated? that sounds like an interesting compromise between having gravel and the potential safety issues with digging in and clean up. Although we didn’t see that concern coming to fruition at Imola. I wonder if it will be successful at slowing down cars. At least the drivers will feel it.

    Side note I’ll be surprised if Lawson ends up good enough to go to Red Bull, I see him more as a Hartley but I’ve been surprised before.

    1. They have a similar treatment at some corners at Zandvoort, but not really ones where track limits are likely to be a problem. Hopefully they proved successful at either deterring drivers from running wide or at least allowing them to better judge when they have so they can avoid going fully off.

  10. Really…Is no-one gonna say it?!! The reason for less safety car is that the key causer of Safety Car’s, Sargeant, is no longer racing in Formula One!

    1. You may think it and your probaly right on the spot to blame him but we don’t talk about him as it can be counted as rude and that we don’t …

  11. So is Danny Ric, gone gone, or has he swapped positions with Liam? Will he be attending the GP as a reserve driver or is he already farming in Australia?

    I assumed he would be the RedBull and RBVCARB reserve driver.

    1. Danny definitely won’t be hanging around the the RBR and RB garages.

      1. I think he is still around as he is Red Bull ambassador …. I think or something like David Coulthard does…

  12. Third in F2. 5 F1 races for 2 points. He is no Piastri of that I am certain.

  13. it sounds like Ricciardo might have been dropped ‘early’, and that Lawson might not be a great team player. Lawyers, agents, what ever politics. Certainly the media, whom favor Merc-Toto and Liberty don’t mind pushing this grind, but its pretty clear its not easy going this year at RBR. Hopefully RBR can ditch some of the more toxic elements from their garage so they run a tighter ship in the future, … and destroy Mercedes pull on the series.

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