Liam Lawson reveals how one question to former advisor Helmut Marko changed the entire course of his Formula 1 career. The New Zealander decided after five years in Red Bull’s development program to confront the Austrian in 2023 at Zandvoort. “I said to him: ‘Why don’t you just give me a chance?’,” Lawson recounts. That same race weekend, the driver made his debut with the then AlphaTauri.
Liam Lawson was included in Red Bull’s development program in 2019. Three years later, the New Zealander finished third in the Formula 2 championship, but had to watch as Nyck de Vries and Daniel Ricciardo were given seats in 2023 at Red Bull’s sister team, the then AlphaTauri. At Zandvoort, Lawson decided to confront former Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko.
“I spent three days mostly thinking about things, and then I flew to Zandvoort,” he recalls in an episode of Off the Grid. “I decided I would just sit down with Helmut and put him under pressure to find out exactly what he thinks.”
So said, so done. “Friday morning I walked into his office in Zandvoort and said: ‘Why don’t you just give me a chance? You’ve invested all that money in me. What’s the point? I’ve been in the program for five years’,” he remembers. “It got to a point where I think he got a bit irritated because he basically just shut me out.”
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Chance at Zandvoort
Later that day, however, Lawson already got the chance to prove himself in a Formula 1 car. Daniel Ricciardo crashed into the barriers during the second free practice at Zandvoort and broke his wrist. The Australian had to watch the entire race weekend from the sidelines.
“It wasn’t just a straightforward decision: ‘Liam is going in the car’,” Lawson recalls what happened next. “It was: ‘Who else can we bring in who might have experience, who has driven the car before?’ I went to Helmut, just walked in, he looked at me and said: ‘Are you ready?’ I said: ‘Yes’. And that was the whole conversation.”
Lawson then sat in the AlphaTauri car for five Grands Prix before Ricciardo could take the wheel again. A year later, after the Singapore GP, the New Zealander permanently replaced Ricciardo. When asked if he felt in a difficult position because he had to replace the Australian driver, Lawson explained: “I never felt that. It’s like this: as annoying as it is, we’re all fighting for these seats. It’s nothing personal. But when you fight for your career, that’s everything and you can’t put anything above that.”
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Read everything about the Dutch GP in Zandvoort here
