Liam Lawson has hailed his 2021 F1 Young Drivers’ Test appearance for AlphaTauri as “an amazing day” after finishing second quickest in his first appearance in a F1 car.
Lawson finished second fastest on the first day of the test 1.326 seconds behind Mercedes’ Nyck De Vries after conducting 125 laps across the day’s split-sessions, with this opportunity in Abu Dhabi coming after a strong season as he collected four wins across F2 and DTM.
This test also marked Lawson’s first experience of a current F1 car with the New Zealander left in awe of his experience as he said: “What an amazing day, it’s incredible how unbelievably fast these cars are.”
“I’ve obviously driven in the simulator before and when I’m there I always think that there’s no way that the car can actually be that quick in real life, but it really is.” said Lawson as he proceeded to compare the contrast between simulator and actual on-track experiences.
Reflecting on what this experience meant to him as he pushes for a potential F1 seat in 2023, Lawson added: “This has been something that I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid so it’s just incredible and I’m really, really happy.”
Although initially “nervous” about getting behind the wheel for the first time, Lawson spoke about his reaction to the difference in power, as he commented: “It took me a little while to get to full throttle but when I did I thought ‘holy moly that’s a lot of power!’”
Lawson also noted the difference in downforce compared to previous cars that he had driven as he focused on his programme, which contained a mixture of short and long runs on different tyre compounds and adapting to live data on top of updates from his engineer over radio.
Current AlphaTauri driver, Yuki Tsunoda was conducting test work on 18 inch tyres but helped provide Lawson with feedback which he described as “really great,” due to Tsunoda’s “understandings and learnings” of F1 this season.
AlphaTauri Chief Race Engineer, Jonathan Eddolls in turn praised Lawson for a “fantastic” day of running as “he adapted quickly to the handling and speed” of modern F1 machinery in building up his pace quickly to enable the conduction of test items and various car balances.
Eddolls added that those tests were conducted “blind” to ensure that Lawson had no ideas with technical feedback focused on performance and alignment of test items, whilst also introducing the Kiwi to a variety of tyre run strategies and fuel loads.
On reflection of Lawson’s debut in a F1 car, Eddolls concluded: “It was a pleasure working with him and we can already see from this short working relationship that he has great potential and will have a very bright future in motorsport!”
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