Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has confirmed that Liam Lawson will serve a grid penalty for his first race back in F1 at the United States Grand Prix after replacing Daniel Ricciardo.

Lawson will contest the final six races of the F1 2024 season after Red Bull junior team VCARB confirmed Ricciardo’s departure last week.

Christian Horner confirms US GP grid penalty for Liam Lawson

The New Zealander has the chance to stake a claim for a full-time seat for the F1 2025 season, having impressed while standing in for the injured Ricciardo across five races last year.

With F1 engine allocations tied to the car rather than the driver, Lawson will inherit Ricciardo’s pool of power unit components for the last six rounds with a 10-place penalty on the way for the next race in Austin, Texas.

Appearing on the F1 Nation podcast, Horner has confirmed that Lawson will be taking a drop of 10 places in Austin, referring to the engine penalty as “a bit of a soft landing” for the 22-year-old after a 12-month absence.

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And the Red Bull team boss is keen to see how Lawson measures up against Yuki Tsunoda, widely regarded as one of the stars of the F1 2024 season having scored 22 of VCARB’s 34 points to date.

Assessing Lawson’s prospects, Horner said: “In Austin, he’ll be taking an engine penalty anyway, so he’s got a bit of a soft landing or soft re-entry.

“But of course he’s going to be gauged against his team-mate.

“He was very quick against him last year, I think Yuki stepped it up a gear again this year, so it’s just going to be fascinating to see how quickly he adapts, how quickly he gets on with it.”

Lawson has conducted testing for Red Bull’s senior team across F1 2024, driving the RB20 car at such circuits as Silverstone and Monza.

With Lawson yet to be confirmed as a VCARB driver for next season, it has been suggested that an instant impression could see the youngster emerge as a serious alternative to Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen’s team-mate for F1 2025.

Asked what he is expecting from Lawson ahead of the last six races, Horner responded: “It’s difficult to say.

“Last year, Liam jumped in and he beat Yuki in Singapore and Japan and was quick from the outset.

“He’s a tough racer, we know that. He’s very adaptable and certainly the testing that he’s done for us in the Red Bull Racing car this year has been very, very encouraging.

“We know that Yuki is a very, very fast driver and he can definitely extract a lap and he’s mature, because he’s not a rookie anymore. He’s in his fourth season of grand prix racing and has a lot of experience under his belt now.

“So taking him as the data point, we saw where Daniel compared to Yuki.

“It will just be very interesting to see how Liam performs over the remaining six races.”

Lawson is known to have been frustrated at missing out on a full-time seat with VCARB for F1 2024, having produced the team’s best result at that stage of 2023 with a ninth-place finish in Singapore, where he dramatically knocked Verstappen out of qualifying.

VCARB’s driver lineup for this season was confirmed just days later at the Japanese Grand Prix, with both Ricciardo and Tsunoda retained.

The most recent series of Drive to Survive, Netflix’s highly acclaimed F1 docuseries, lifted the lid on Lawson’s anger at being overlooked in favour of Tsunoda.

After being informed that Tsunoda and Ricciardo would be retained for F1 2024, Lawson says: “I’ve just beaten the guy who got the seat.

“It was meant to be me.”

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