‘My parents sold their house so I could keep racing’ - Liam Lawson’s hard F1 Journey

Liam Lawson became the latest driver to race for a Formula 1 team. The RB team replaces Daniel Ricciardo after his poor performance this year. After a long wait and patience, Liam Lawson will now race full-time starting from the US GP. Liam Lawson will likely be the driver for the RB team in the 2025 season. He is from New Zealand's north island where he learnt go-karting at an early age. Then he moved to a domestic single-seaters tournament. 

At the age of 16 Lawson moved to Europe to compete in the German F4 championship with Dutch Squad Van Amersfoort racing and to get noticed. He was backed by a New Zealand-based based company. Liam Lawson said to help him race his parents sold their house and supported his racing career.

Hard-earned racing career- Liam Lawson

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He said “My parents and my whole family gave a lot, especially in the early years through go-karts. My parents sold their house so that I could keep racing. It's massive. They gave everything for me to be able to race, even just go-karts because it's so expensive.” 

The same kind of story happened in Oscar Piastri's life as he moved to a boarding school in the UK far away from home to have a racing career. Both the Australian and Kiwi drivers had some steel inside them now they both are established in Formula 1. Lawson was not picked by any F1 junior Academy in 2017 and his F1 dream was on the brink of collapsing. But fortunately, while he was driving the 2019 Toyota racing series he was seen by none other than Helmut Marko. 

He was then called to race for the Red Bulls Junior team as a reserve driver. The RB team is looking for a future Senior team driver who could take over from Max Verstappen. Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson would be battling for the senior spot. Max Verstappen was also a junior driver who came as a replacement driver for Danii Kvyat and won in his inaugural season at the Spanish Grand Prix for Red Bull and rest is history. 

Also Read: 'Leaving us was the turning point'- Red Bull Boss Helmut Marko on Daniel Ricciardo's downfall in Formula 1 career