Purple Bull Racing workforce principal Christian Horner admits there’s a hazard of Liam Lawson struggling inside the workforce’s atmosphere by being promoted too quickly.
Lawson has been picked to associate Max Verstappen in 2025 regardless of having began simply 11 grands prix, with the extra skilled Yuki Tsunoda missed to switch Sergio Perez. The Mexican had been introduced in after each Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon struggled within the Purple Bull seat early of their careers, and Horner acknowledges the dangers which are related to younger drivers.
“Look, the hazard is there’s a repeat of that,” Horner mentioned. “However I feel that Liam is a unique character. He’s a unique character to have the ability to cope with that stress. I feel he’s proven actual resilience and power of character with the chance that’s been offered to have to show up and get on with it and ship — and he’s achieved that.
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“The plan initially wasn’t for that to be accelerated for this yr. circumstances have dictated with Checo sadly not having an excellent season — that has been accelerated. However we consider the place Liam is on the trajectory that he’s on, that may solely enhance.
“And he drives the automotive similarly to Max. He doesn’t shrink back from having a really constructive entrance finish within the automotive. So I feel by way of driving attribute, will probably be simpler for the automobiles to run extra intently collectively in setup.”
Horner believes having a transparent hierarchy with Verstappen because the lead driver is now a unique state of affairs that ought to take the stress off Lawson in comparison with juniors which have gone earlier than him.
“Daniel [Ricciardo] and Max have been a robust pairing. We then had two juniors that struggled. And that’s why clearly Checo then stepped into the automotive for the ’21 season and coped with the pressures of that effectively.
“I feel the opposite issue that we’re targeted very arduous on is ensuring that we’re making a wider working window with RB21 than RB20’s very slender, very peaky efficiency window. So for us, to create a broader window will hopefully solely assist Liam discover a extra, maybe forgiving automotive than RB20 may very well be occasionally.
“I feel one of many issues we’ll be trying to shield Liam from is expectation. After all, when Alex and Pierre have been with the workforce, Max wasn’t a four-time world champion. He hadn’t received a world championship at that time. We’ve got a really clear positioning within the workforce with the place Max is at in his profession and what we’d like from the second driver.”
