Lawson makes his F1 debut for AlphaTauri at the Belgian GP

F1 News

23 August 2022 at 09:21
Last update 23 August 2022 at 11:15
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  • GPblog.com

Liam Lawson will make his debut in an official Formula One session. The New Zealand driver will drive the first free practice session for AlphaTauri at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The AlphaTauri team announced on Tuesday morning that Lawson will be in action during the first free practice session of the Belgian GP. With this, AlphaTauri has already fulfilled one of the two sessions that the team's regular drivers must give up to a rookie in 2022. Lawson has been part of the Red Bull programme for some time and is reserve driver for both F1 teams in 2022.

Opportunity for Lawson

Lawson was one of the candidates for the AlphaTauri seat for 2023. Pierre Gasly, whose seat Lawson is borrowing this Friday, already has a contract for 2023, but the second seat is still available. Yuki Tsunoda will do everything he can to keep that seat, but Lawson also intends to make the move to F1.

However, Lawson's second season in F2 has not gone as he had hoped. The twenty-year-old driver is in a disappointing eighth position in the standings, 92 points behind leader Felipe Drugovich. Lawson did win two sprint races this year, but crashed out too many times due to incidents in the race. He will hope to make more of an impression with his test in the AT03.