‘I do know they needed to present me a shot sooner or later’
Lawson did a adequate job in these assessments, which included runs in each old-spec Pink Bull and RB equipment to persuade Pink Bull he had the potential to ship not solely within the RB but additionally the Pink Bull ought to they determine to maneuver on from Sergio Perez.
With that in thoughts, they wanted to get him the automotive sooner quite than later, so throughout the Azerbaijan weekend, they advised Lawson the information he had been hoping – and needing – to listen to.
“Baku was the purpose I used to be advised,” he says. “Issues change in a short time throughout the 12 months. There have been factors when issues have been trying good and factors when it wasn’t trying so good. I all the time knew the inducement was to present me a shot, and I’ve recognized that since final 12 months, Christian [Horner, Red Bull boss] advised me that personally.
“I do know they needed to present me a shot sooner or later – and I trusted that as properly. Nevertheless it’s arduous, after that period of time, to be affected person. As a lot as I believed it, it was getting fairly troublesome.
“It was leaning in direction of this path – not precisely the place I used to be going to go, however that I used to be going to get a seat someplace – that was the path it was heading in for the previous few weeks main into Singapore and it was Baku once they gave me the choice.”
Pink Bull are arduous taskmasters. They’ve by no means been afraid to drop or demote drivers mid-season – comparable to Nyck de Vries, Daniel Kyvat, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Ricciardo to call just a few – or solely from the programme. Even for those who carry out to their desired degree, there nonetheless must be a seat out there to maneuver into.
When Lawson was ignored for a full-time seat this 12 months, regardless of a powerful exhibiting as an excellent sub, after which watched as every race ticked by this 12 months with out him getting the nod to exchange certainly one of Pink Bull’s steady of 4 race drivers, did he begin to suppose it was by no means going to occur for him?
