Daniel Ricciardo's replacement Liam Lawson has F1 penalty confirmed before US Grand Prix
Red Bull made the difficult decision to remove Formula 1 fans' favourite Daniel Ricciardo from his VCARB race seat after last month's Singapore Grand Prix and give it to reserve Liam Lawson
by Daniel Moxon · The MirrorLiam Lawson will inherit an engine penalty from predecessor Daniel Ricciardo at this weekend's United States Grand Prix.
The pressure will be on the Kiwi to perform after Red Bull decided to promote him to his first permanent Formula 1 race seat at Ricciardo's expense. But it will be difficult for him to make an impression at his first F1 outing of the season in Austin this weekend.
That's because Red Bull boss Christian Horner has confirmed that Lawson will need to serve a penalty for taking new engine components for the Sprint event. Annual parts allowances are allotted to the entry rather than the driver specifically, meaning the 22-year-old inherits the power units already used by Ricciardo this year.
Horner said they have decided to take the penalty in Austin this weekend, which will be served during Saturday's Sprint race, to provide Lawson with "a soft re-entry" into F1 racing, having impressed in a five-race stint covering for his injured fellow Antipodean last year. "He will be taking an engine penalty anyway," the Red Bull chief said.
"He's got a bit of a soft landing, or a soft re-entry." But Horner went on to make it clear that it will not relieve any of the pressure Lawson will be under to perform from the get-go, making it clear that his performances will be measured against those of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda when deciding their plans for 2025 and beyond.
He added: "Of course, he is going to be gauged against his team-mate. He was very quick against him last year. I think Yuki has stepped it up a gear again this year. It is just going to be fascinating to see how quickly he adapts, how quickly he gets on with it."
Of the five races in which Lawson took part in 2023, three of them saw both the New Zealander and Tsunoda finish. Of those, the Kiwi had the upper hand by finishing ahead of his Japanese rival on two occasions out of the three.
Asked whether Lawson can have an immediate impact in Austin, Horner replied: "It is difficult to say. Last year, Liam was quick from the outset. He is a tough racer and he is very adaptable. Certainly, the testing that he has done for us in the Red Bull Racing car this year has been very encouraging.
"We know that Yuki is a very, very fast driver. He can definitely extract a lap and as he has matured - because he is not a rookie anymore, he is in his fourth season of Grand Prix racing - he has got a lot of experience under his belt now.
"Taking him as the data point, we saw where Daniel compared to Yuki, [so] it will just be very interesting to see how Liam performs over the remaining six races."
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