Purple Bull Racing group principal Christian Horner admits there’s a hazard of Liam Lawson struggling inside the group’s atmosphere by being promoted too quickly.
Lawson has been picked to accomplice Max Verstappen in 2025 regardless of having began simply 11 grands prix, with the extra skilled Yuki Tsunoda ignored to exchange 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 can be related to younger drivers.
“Look, the hazard is there’s a repeat of that,” Horner stated. “However I feel that Liam is a unique character. He’s a unique persona to have the ability to take care of that strain. I feel he’s proven actual resilience and power of character with the chance that’s been supplied 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 12 months. 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 can solely enhance.
“And he drives the automotive similarly to Max. He doesn’t shrink back from having a really optimistic entrance finish within the automotive. So I feel when it comes to driving attribute, it is going to be simpler for the vehicles 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 strain off Lawson in comparison with juniors which have gone earlier than him.
“Daniel [Ricciardo] and Max have been a powerful 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 properly.
“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 might be every so often.
“I feel one of many issues we’ll be seeking to defend Liam from is expectation. In fact, when Alex and Pierre have been with the group, Max wasn’t a four-time world champion. He hadn’t gained a world championship at that time. We now have a really clear positioning within the group with the place Max is at in his profession and what we’d like from the second driver.”
