{"id":25501,"date":"2024-10-21T11:50:42","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T15:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=25501"},"modified":"2024-10-21T11:57:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T15:57:48","slug":"liam-lawson-on-track-for-red-bull-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/21\/liam-lawson-on-track-for-red-bull-promotion\/","title":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson on track for Red Bull promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even before the lights went out for the US GP, Red Bull saw <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/17\/liam-lawson-reveals-red-bull-criteria-for-2025-promotion\/\" target=\"_self\">Liam Lawson<\/a> as a leading contender to partner Max Verstappen in 2025. The team&#8217;s internal confidence in Lawson has only grown, with the Kiwi delivering an immediately strong performance in his F1 comeback.<\/p>\n<h2>Christian Horner and Helmut Marko both enthusiastic about Lawson progress<\/h2>\n<p>Typically speaking, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/12\/christian-horner-red-bull-wind-tunnel-has-its-limitations\/\" target=\"_self\">Christian Horner<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/03\/helmut-marko-ricciardo-failed-to-deliver-necessary-performance\/\" target=\"_self\">Helmut Marko<\/a> have plenty of disagreements about driver selection. For example, the decision to retain Daniel Ricciardo until the Singapore GP was primarily due to Horner&#8217;s influence.<\/p>\n<p>It is well-established that Marko wanted to replace the Australian several months prior.<\/p>\n<p>However, both senior Red Bull personnel are on the same page about Liam Lawson. When the Kiwi&#8217;s F1 comeback was confirmed last month, Horner was very open about his expectations.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Bull team principal described the 22-year-old as a top candidate to replace Sergio Perez for 2025. In the build-up to last weekend&#8217;s race, he emphasised that securing the strongest possible driver line-up is a top priority.<\/p>\n<p>This essentially confirmed that Lawson and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/18\/yuki-tsunoda-i-deserve-to-drive-for-red-bull\/\" target=\"_self\">Tsunoda<\/a> would be in a shoot-out for the remainder of the season. Still, it is no secret that Lawson&#8217;s position within the Red Bull pecking order (whether fairly or not) was higher than his Japanese teammate.<\/p>\n<p>Helmut Marko, though generally more enthusiastic about Tsunoda than Horner, is also optimistic about Lawson&#8217;s potential.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"WxGr7NwpRgtyP9RTDx-s5w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2179844401\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'WxGr7NwpRgtyP9RTDx-s5w',sig:'yqRg_wA7r4WlETEgMsiRzIf-lQXcxJFbwCwV18Evn6g=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2179844401',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Lawson debut reaffirms Red Bull confidence<\/h3>\n<p>Lawson securing points at in COTA only cemented the Austrian team&#8217;s belief that he should be considered for a promotion.<\/p>\n<p>Helmut Marko gave a positive review of the 22-year-old&#8217;s comeback performance in COTA:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;A really great debut,&#8221; he told Sky Germany.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;That was already apparent in Q1, where he drove the third fastest time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;He was in control at all times and had great overtaking manoeuvres. You have to put the youngsters in the car and then it works. He is definitely a man for the future.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Simultaneously, the 81-year-old&#8217;s comments about Sergio Perez have been increasingly negative since <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/16\/liam-lawson-being-strongly-considered-for-2025-red-bull-seat\/\" target=\"_self\">Lawson&#8217;s VCARB return<\/a> was announced.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst far more diplomatic than his Austrian colleague, Christian Horner has also made clear that Max Verstappen could have a new teammate in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/20\/sergio-perez-i-dont-have-the-same-upgrades-as-verstappen\/\" target=\"_self\">Perez<\/a> finishing an uninspiring 7th in COTA, only 10 seconds ahead of Lawson who started from 19th, Lawson could not have wished for a better comeback to blster his Red Bull chances.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next few weeks, as momentum continues to gather for the Kiwi driver, the defending champions will continue to make their assessments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even before the lights went out for the US GP, Red Bull saw Liam Lawson as a leading contender to partner Max Verstappen in 2025. The team&#8217;s internal confidence in Lawson has only grown, with the Kiwi delivering an immediately strong performance in his F1 comeback. Christian Horner and Helmut Marko both enthusiastic about Lawson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":25530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,68,465,610,1755,78],"class_list":["post-25501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-helmut-marko","tag-liam-lawson","tag-red-bull-racing"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}