Liam Lawson: It won’t be easy for me in Qatar

Liam Lawson only heard from Daniel Ricciardo on Monday that he would be racing for AlphaTauri in Qatar for the fifth race in a row.

Liam Lawson: “It was Monday. During lunch my phone rang, the number was unknown and it was not a regular phone call, but a video call via the FaceTime service, which surprised me. Since random people don’t use FaceTime, I answered and saw Daniel’s face on the display! He said he was giving me another weekend (laughs).

Of course I’m happy to be behind the wheel again on a new circuit for me. To be honest, after Japan everything looked like I would go again this weekend, so I continued to prepare for the weekend according to the usual schedule. Of course I want to participate permanently in Formula 1 and if you temporarily replace someone that is a slightly different situation, but I will try to make optimal use of that.

I can’t say for sure, but it looks like Daniel will be back behind the wheel in Austin, and while that’s still two weeks away, I think it will probably happen in the US.

But in Qatar it won’t be easy for me because this is my first race weekend with a sprint and there will be very little time for training. On the one hand everything is in balance, on the other hand I have never driven on this circuit so it will be more difficult for me, but I am already looking forward to my first sprint on Saturday.

I haven’t taken a walk along the route yet; it was too hot and I wanted to wait until the evening when it would be cooler. But at least on the simulator it looks cool, it seems that the speeds are very high. I don’t know yet what pace we can reach, but I want to get behind the wheel as quickly as possible.”