Lawson looking to lock up championship
Christopher Reive
Before he returns to the track to contest the Super Formula championship, Liam Lawson is in a race against time.
A lot of rubber has been burned since the Kiwi driver was last behind the wheel in Super Formula, with the 21-year-old having raced for AlphaTauri in five Formula One events in the past two months.
Lawson impressed in his stint at the top level, earning championship points in just his third race and scoring the best individual finish of any AlphaTauri driver this season with a ninth in Singapore.
It was a massive opportunity for
Lawson, however, as he looks to close out his season on Japan’s Super Formula series, the considerable time spent in a Formula One car adds to the challenge of his return to a lower level.
“It’ll be tough. It’s something I noticed going into F1. I’d driven F1 cars before, but after doing Super Formula this year, it was a big shift. I know it’s going to be tough,” Lawson told the Weekend Herald.
“I know it’s in there somewhere, I’ve just got to refresh myself. Hopefully, I can do that as quickly as possible. The only problem is we have such short practice times there. We have one session to get ready for it, so it’s going to be tough, especially that
Saturday round, but we’ll see. Hopefully, by Sunday, we’re in a position to still be fighting for the championship.”
Unlike Formula One, where most weekends include three practice sessions before qualifying, this weekend’s racing at Suzuka offers one practice drive, as it is a double-race weekend — with races on Saturday and Sunday evening — so every other session is either a race or qualifying.
Heading into the weekend, Lawson is second in the championship standings with 86 points, eight behind leader Ritomo Miyata. With 20 points for a race win, 15 for second and 11 for third — as well as lower hauls for the rest of the top 10 — Lawson is in contention to finish the year on top of the podium.
So far this season, he has had three podiums (all wins) and another three top-five results.
Lawson goes into the weekend’s racing at Suzuka looking to become the second Kiwi to win the Super Formula championship, after Nick Cassidy in 2019.
Regardless of how this weekend plays out, it is likely to be Lawson’s last hurrah in Super Formula.
Although his stint in Formula One wasn’t enough to earn him a full-time seat for 2024, he expects to focus solely on his requirements as the reserve driver for Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri as opposed to juggling that with competing in a series elsewhere, as he has done this year.
Immersing himself entirely in the world of Formula One next year shapes up as a good career move, with three of the four seats in the Red Bullaffiliated teams vacant beyond 2024, along with at least nine other seats across the grid.
“In terms of other championships, I’ve done it all — at least on the F1 path,” Lawson told the Weekend Herald.
“F2 and Super Formula are the two closest things, especially Super Formula, and by the end of the season, I would have done it, so unless I go back for a second time, I think I’ll probably just focus on being reserve.”