Liam Lawson is probably one of the most exiting drivers for F1 right now. While he might have just raced four races in F1 he did very well in all of them although he was driving arguably the slowest car on the grid but before I continue to explain lets first have a quick look at how we got here.
It’s the eleventh of September 2022 and we were about to see the Monza F1 race also know as the Temple of speed due to the fact that it is probably one of the fastest going races of the season. Alex Albon one of the Williams drivers was sick so they had to find a replacement for that day luckily Nick Devries up and coming driver had participated in multiple practice sessions and we be a great sub for the day. He was set to sub in for Albon for the weekend. Nick Devries qualified 13th but because many people had to serve grid penalties he started in a whopping 8th (keep in mind that he was driving one of the slowest cars). In the race he ended up finishing 9th , 6 places ahead of his teammate Latifi. So impressed by this performance Alpha Tauri signed him for the 2023 season. As that season began the expectations for him were set very high. As a matter of fact they were set too high. For the first half of the season he was very consistent, in coming last. Jokes aside he had a pretty underwhelming performance failing to score any points. He was in a very slow car but he was in the bottom 5 most of the time and before you know it he was gone as quickly as he arrived with Daniel Riccardo coming back to replace him. To me it makes sense the excpectations were way to high. He might have won F2 and Formula E but he didn’t have much competition anyways. He spent a long time in F2 and only managed to win when people like Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and Goerge Russel had moved on to F1 and his only competitor was Latifi who is know for having been the worst driver in F1 in 2022. Also the only reason he finished in 9th at Monza was because of others having lots of grid penalties.
Moving on Riccardo would end up braking his hand in a crash and Liam Lawson would replace him until he was fine. In the chaotic race of the Netherlands he would manage to keep his car on the track unlike many other and finish in a very respectable 11th which is great for a first race in a bad car. He did the same in the following race but after that in Singapore which was one of if not the most exciting race of the season so far he would come in 9th by keeping his car on the track and outside of the barriers unlike many others again. He just scored more points in two races than De vries could in half of that same season. After that he finished 11th again but instead Ricciardo got signed for next season. While he might have been a safe pick Liam Lawson had an awesome performance and there really was no reason not to have him.