F1 News
A clear message for Lawson: 'Now, he has to be Verstappen's help'
Christian Klien believes Red Bull Racing have learnt from their past mistakes, and as a result, they will put less pressure on Liam Lawson in his first year with the Austrian team. The former Formula 1 driver stresses that Lawson's main concern is to learn from Max Verstappen and not focus so much on the idea of being able to beat the four-time world champion.
Lawson starts his first full season as a regular F1 driver at Red Bull this year, replacing Sergio Perez after the Mexican and the Austrian team mutually parted ways. "For me, it was quite clear they had to change something," Klien told The Business of Winning podcast. "Checo just unfortunately didn’t deliver anymore. He had a great time at Red Bull Racing, but for the last one-and-a-half years, it just didn’t click anymore. Mentally I think it was a difficult situation for him so they had to change something."
For his successor, Klien has advised Lawson not to start his first year at Red Bull with his expectations too high, especially with Helmut Marko and team boss Christian Horner already indicating that Verstappen is the clear number one and that Lawson is expected to be able to follow behind the Dutchman by a few tenths.
'Lawson should not want to beat Verstappen'
"For Liam, if you get this opportunity, you have to grab it with both hands. Everybody’s dream is to drive in a top team and a top car. The difficulty is you’re driving next to Max Verstappen," the 42-year-old Austrian continued. "That’s now down to him. I think he has the talent, he is a really quick driver, he showed this. He can adapt very quickly. I think he is also mentally strong. But he has to go at this in a very clever way, I think."
"He shouldn’t go into Red Bull Racing and think ‘I can beat Max Verstappen’ because I don’t think early on in his career that’s possible. He has to be a great number two driver, let’s say, now, learn from the best that Max Verstappen is at the moment and his time can come in the future. So again, it’s really exciting to see this year how he will handle the situation and how Red Bull Racing as a team helps him in this role next to Max Verstappen," concluded Klein.
This article was written in collaboration wth Olly Darcy
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