/Formula%201%20header%20template%20-%202024-10-15T154849.117.png?w=860&resize=860,0&ssl=1 "Lawson on his ‘rollercoaster’ 2024 and his Crimson Bull aim")
‘I do know they needed to provide me a shot in some unspecified time in the future’
Lawson did a adequate job in these assessments, which included runs in each old-spec Crimson Bull and RB equipment to persuade Crimson Bull he had the potential to ship not solely within the RB but in addition the Crimson Bull ought to they resolve to maneuver on from Sergio Perez.
With that in thoughts, they wanted to get him the automotive sooner moderately than later, so in the course of the Azerbaijan weekend, they advised Lawson the information he had been hoping – and needing – to listen to.
“Baku was the purpose I used to be advised,” he says. “Issues change in a short time in the course of the yr. There have been factors when issues have been wanting good and factors when it wasn’t wanting so good. I at all times knew the inducement was to provide me a shot, and I’ve identified that since final yr, Christian [Horner, Red Bull boss] advised me that personally.
“I do know they needed to provide me a shot in some unspecified time in the future – and I trusted that as properly. Nevertheless it’s arduous, after that period of time, to be affected person. As a lot as I believed it, it was getting fairly tough.
“It was leaning in the direction of this course – not precisely the place I used to be going to go, however that I used to be going to get a seat someplace – that was the course it was heading in for the previous few weeks main into Singapore and it was Baku after they gave me the choice.”
READ MORE: 5 mid-season driver swaps that paid off – and 5 that didn’t – as Lawson steps as much as change Ricciardo
Crimson Bull are arduous taskmasters. They’ve by no means been afraid to drop or demote drivers mid-season – comparable to Nyck de Vries, Daniel Kyvat, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Ricciardo to call a couple of – or completely from the programme. Even in case you carry out to their desired stage, there nonetheless must be a seat out there to maneuver into.
When Lawson was missed for a full-time seat this yr, regardless of a powerful exhibiting as a brilliant sub, after which watched as every race ticked by this yr with out him getting the nod to exchange considered one of Crimson Bull’s steady of 4 race drivers, did he begin to assume it was by no means going to occur for him?
