Lawson is the tenth New Zealand driver in F1 history

Liam Lawson was unexpectedly given the opportunity to make his F1 debut with AlphaTauri and has just left for his first practice session at Zandvoort.

He becomes New Zealand’s tenth F1 driver and the youngest in 43 years since 19-year-old Mike Tuckwell, who formally debuted with the Tyrrell in Canada in 1980, although he never started that race.

Lawson, 21, is doing well this year in Japanese Super Formula, taking second place in the drivers’ standings, but combined this with reserve driver duties for Red Bull, and at the Dutch Grand Prix his services were in high demand when Daniel Ricciardo was injured hit.

By the way, the legendary New Zealander Bruce McLaren, the founder of the McLaren team, was also 21 years old when he entered the German Grand Prix in 1958, and at the age of 22 he achieved his first victory by the US Grand Prix to win. .

Chris Amon made his F1 debut in 1960 at the age of 20 and is sometimes referred to as the greatest driver in championship history never to win a Grand Prix, although he has finished on the podium 11 times, including second on three occasions. .

But the greatest success was achieved by another New Zealander, Denny Hulme – he is the only representative of this country to become the world champion. Hulme won the title in 1967 with Brabham. And he made his debut in Formula 1 two years earlier, when he was almost 29 years old.

The rest of the New Zealand drivers have left a much less conspicuous mark on championship history and the last of them was Brandon Hartley, another member of the Red Bull youth programme. However, by the time he made his Toro Rosso debut in 2017, he could be classified as a youth with some stretch: he was already 27.

He spent 25 Grands Prix with this team and his best result was 9th place in Austin in 2018. After that, Brandon returned to endurance racing, where he performs more than successfully: together with the Porsche factory team, he became WEC champion in 2015 and 2017, and repeated this last year with Toyota.

Liam Lawson has a tough test ahead of him this weekend, but he is a fast and fairly experienced pro rider who is regarded as one of the most talented of this generation. He has repeatedly driven Formula 1 cars during tests and last year spent three training sessions behind the wheel of AlphaTauri and Red Bull cars.

Now he had an opportunity, which he had to use as correctly as possible. He is part of AlphaTauri at number 40. Another curious detail can be added: by the year 2002, when he was born, Fernando Alonso had already spent his first season in Formula 1. By the way, in the Minardi team, which then turned into Toro Rosso and is now called AlphaTauri.