Liam Lawson to Assume Driver Role With Visa Cash App RB

The following article was not written by Speed Trap Magazine Staff…

From Visa Cash App RB…

Faenza, Italy – Visa Cash App RB can today confirm that Liam Lawson will be driving for the Team for the remainder of the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship season, racing alongside Yuki Tsunoda in the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas. Liam has been a Red Bull reserve driver since 2022, making his Grand Prix debut in Zandvoort last year during Daniel’s recovery period. His impressive five-race drive saw him score points for the Team, finishing ninth in the Singapore GP.

Visa Cash App RB Team Principal, Laurent Mekies said: “Everyone here at VCARB would like to thank Daniel for his hard work across the last two seasons with us. He has brought a lot of experience and talent to the Team with a fantastic attitude, which has helped everyone to develop and foster a tight team spirit. Daniel has been a true gentleman both on and off the track and never without that smile. He will be missed, but will always hold a special place within the Red Bull family.

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome Liam. He already knows the Team well. He drove for us last season, and coped well under difficult circumstances, so it’ll be a natural transition. It’s great to see young talent from within the Red Bull family make the next step. We’re looking forward to getting our heads down and focusing on the rest of the season together.” 

Visa Cash App RB

With more than 350 race starts and counting, Red Bull’s Italian Formula 1 team has been one of the sport’s most consistent and important competitors since 2006.Launched as Scuderia Toro Rosso and charged with bringing future champions to the grid, the team was successful in launching the top level careers of a generation of drivers who have gone on to win races and world championships in Formula 1 and beyond. The success continued following the teams’ 2020 rebrand as Scuderia AlphaTauri, with victory at the Italian Grand Prix in its first season. Now reborn with an expanded mission to battle for the sport’s biggest prizes, Visa Cash App RB team is powering into a new era of competition at the pinnacle of motor sport.

McLaren continued their dominance this weekend in Singapore at marina Bay with Lando Norris securing the win in the Singapore Grand prix from pole position. The win means Norris cut into Verstappen’s championship lead again and Red Bull seemingly has no answer for this new found pace at McLaren. Norris was visibly pleased after the race.

“Another win!,” he said. I’m so happy with today, it was an amazing performance from the team. The car was mega so I could push. We were fast throughout the whole race, and at the end, I could focus to see it out. It was still a very tough race with a few too many close calls. It was very easy to lock-up a tire – which I did a couple of times, but I was pushing because I wanted to have the biggest lead possible. It’s nice to have Oscar on the podium too. He drove well, and we got a lot of points, so a good way to thank the team for their hard work.”

Red Bull Might Lose Out on Title Race

The last 3 race weekend have exposed some flaws in the Red Bull camp. The team has had a rollercoaster of change in terms of personnel this year. We can only assume the recent downfall in performance dominance has something to do with the exodus of talent from Milton Keynes. Verstappen still appears to have the pace to compete at the top for the drivers championship but Sergio Perez is in no mans land.

Perez has failed to find a rhythm this year. This lack of performance has left Red Bull unable to hold onto their early season lead. Despite Verstappen finishing P2 Perez finished P10. Perez saod, “Tonight’s result was a shame I think, we had a great start, but we lost an opportunity to undercut some cars, like we saw Carlos and Ferrari do. It was really unfortunate, after passing three cars at the start, it then became a tricky race. It was frustrating and I think we missed out a bit on the strategy side. I struggled quite a lot with the car bouncing and the balance, it was just not settling down, I had a real issue with it. It became impossible to overtake Franco and Niko, We understand where the issues are, there is a fix but this was a very difficult track for us. It is now time to look forward for the rest of the season, the upcoming tracks should be better for us and we are looking at a package which should help us.”

To make matters worse Oscar Piastri finished P3 which again meant McLaren hauled in more points to start building a late season lead in the constructors championship.

Singapore Grand Prix Results

Lando Norris kept the ball rolling for McLaren after he set the fastest lap in qualifying to secure yet another pole position ahead of Max Verstappen in P2. McLaren solidified themselves as the constructors championship leaders after Azerbaijan. With pole position Norris looks to extend that lead for the first time this season as Red Bull continues to struggle to find answers to McLaren’s late season surge. Verstappen has been very open about his concerns surrounding his Red Bull. However, this weekend he seems to have turned a different cheek. Its clear that this weekend is shaping up to be a battle between Norris and Verstappen at the front.

P3 was a bit of a surprise as Lewis Hamilton emerged as the third fast driver to secure a second row start in tomorrow’s race. Hamilton said, “We’ve been moving around on balance all weekend and they’ve put in a big shift to get the car into a good place. We are now starting from a solid place to fight for the podium tomorrow. We don’t know exactly where our race pace will be compared to others, but with the changes we made overnight, it felt like we had improved since Friday. We’ll be giving it everything on Sunday.”

The Top Three Finishers from Qualifying Share Their Thoughts on the Session

Lando Norris

“It was tough in Qualifying today, I was finding it difficult to go quicker and it put me under a little bit of pressure, especially with just one lap to get it right. The car felt good though, it’s been strong all weekend and when you have that, you’re confident, you can go out and push to get the lap time you need. So, I did the job I had to do to thank the team for their hard work and I’m excited to see what we can do tomorrow.”

Max Verstappen

“I am very happy with second today and it is great to start the race on the front row tomorrow. Huge credit goes to the Team for all of their hard work; they came up with some great solutions and made a lot of changes to the car overnight and it made a huge difference.

The car was a lot nicer to drive, we could attack the corners a bit more and we really maximised our performance today. I had a better feeling with the car and kept on improving it as yesterday was very tough. On paper, this is not a good track on the calendar for us, and we do have our limitations on the pace, so this gives us a lot of hope in the coming races that we can do well. To come out and finish where we did today is an amazing result for qualifying.”

Lewis Hamilton

“I’ve been working really hard to improve my qualifying performances and to get myself back up at the front on a Saturday. The car came alive today and we had one of our strongest Saturdays in a while. That was a great feeling. Having just one effort in Q3 after the red flag was tricky, and there was perhaps a little bit more left in the car, but overall, I am really grateful for what we achieved today.”

Qualifying Results from Singapore

After it was announced that Red Bull Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatly would be leaving the team to take a role at Sauber/Audi as Team Principal Lambiase has been promoted within the Red Bull camp. The new roll for Lambiase will include full control over all track side activity with a direct reporting structure to Red Bull Technical Director, Pierre Wache.

Red Bull has some shuffling going on internally after multiple departures including Adrian Newey who has signed with Aston Martin for the 2025 season. Whether Red Bull will remain as the dominant force we’ve seen over the past 3 year is yet to be determined. Its clear that the well oil machine that is the Red Bull F1 team isn’t rolling the same way they were at this point last season. The move appears to be a positive one for Lambiase. It is not yet clear who will assume the role of Max Verstappen’s engineer.

Oscar Piastri missed out on pole in qualifying but was able to find the pace to turn his efforts into a win on Sunday this aftrnoon for the Azerbaijan grand prix. The win marks Piastri’s second win in Formula One. Despite McLaren esolidifying themselves as the car to beat. The end of the race came down to a 4 driver showdown between Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Segio Perez and Charles Leclerc battling it out. However, the unthinkable happened when Perez and Sainz came together after a failed pass by Perez on Leclerc. Both drivers crashed out of the race with one lap to go. The race ended under a virtual safety car. At the end of the drama McLaren overtook Red Bull as the constructors championship leader.

Oscar Piastri Spoke on the Win

Piastri said, “P1! I’m so happy to have won my second Grand Prix. This is the best win of my career. I’m proud of what we did today. I tried at the start of the race to get in front, but once I dropped out of DRS, I just didn’t have the pace. After the stop, I saw we were pretty close again, and I felt like we had a little bit of extra grip. I had to go for it because I knew that if I didn’t get past at the start of the stint, I was never going to get past. So, I went for a pretty big lunge, but managed to pull it up, and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps. It was hard work, but I think that definitely goes down as one of my better races.

“We’re now leading the World Championship. It’s a massive team effort and everyone at McLaren deserves full credit for the turnaround that’s happened in my 18 months here. The car has improved, but I think they’ve helped me improve as well: 12 months ago, I definitely wasn’t capable of achieving results like this. I’m excited to see what the future holds.”

Full Azerbaijan Grand Prix Results

Chares Leclerc secured pole position ahead of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri who walked away disappointed from the session. It was a great day for the Ferrari with Carlos Sainz finished P3 in the session giving Ferrari one of their best starts of the season. Leclerc said, “I’m satisfied with my lap today. This is a track I’ve always felt comfortable on and I’ve been happy with the feeling in the car from the start of the weekend. We barely changed anything from FP1 in terms of set-up, which is quite rare, and I knew that the confidence was there. Tomorrow will be a long race and tire management will be key, so we will focus on that and give it our all to bring home another victory for our team.”

Gasly is Disqualified for Over Fuel Flow Breach

The FIA stewards summoned Gasly and Alpine for discussion surrounding the finding regarding an alleged breach noting Article 5.2.3 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations – regarding the exceedance of the instantaneous fuel mass flow. The statement read.

“The Technical Delegate reported that Car 10 [Gasly] exceeded the permitted 100Kg/h fuel mass flow on the final timed lap of Q2,” read the note from the stewards confirming the Alpine driver’s disqualification.

“The team representatives explained that they had an unexpected short duration technical fault that raised the fuel mass flow greater than expected in a transient fashion. The cause was agreed by the FIA technical staff.

“That the fuel mass flow was greater than the limit at that moment was not disputed by the competitor. The competitor demonstrated to the Stewards that the technical fault resulted in a slower lap time and that no performance advantage was obtained at that moment. Thus, they argue, this should be taken into mitigation. They also noted that the great rarity of breaches of this article demonstrates that this is not part of their strategy, and that the scale of the transient simply exceeded the margin they maintain to prevent a breach.”

Alpine Team Principal Oliver Oakes Comments on the Decision

Looking ahead to the race tomorrow, the car seemed to improve each session and the pace looked more promising over the long runs. It’ll be a tough race from where we’re starting tomorrow. This track has shown in the past that opportunities can quickly present themselves to move up the order and we need to be there to capitalize on it.”

Qualifying Results

The question marks are now gone and Adrian Newey has a new home. Newey has officially joined Aston Martin F1 Team in a move that has taken months to close. Originally Newey was linked with a move to Ferrari but it became clear that this deal wouldn’t move forward after Newey met with the team and no contracts were signed earlier this year. Newey has been credited with the dominant success of Max Verstappen and Red Bull over the past three years. Aston Martin is hoping he will bring some of that success to the team.

Newey Provides His Comments on the Move

In a press release from F1.com Newey spoke about the move and his goals for the future with the team. I felt as if I needed a new challenge. Towards the end of April, I decided that I needed to do something different.

“I spent a lot of time with Mandy, my wife, kind of discussing what’s next… What do we do? Do we go off and sail around the world? Do I do something different? We took a bit of time out. As I’ve announced to everybody that I will be departing the old team, I was very flattered to have a lot of approaches from various teams, but really Lawrence’s passion, commitment and enthusiasm was very endearing, it’s very persuasive.

The reality is, if you go back 20 years, what we now call Team Principals were actually the owners of the teams, Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Eddie Jordan etcetera. In this modern era, Lawrence is actually unique in being the only properly active team owner.

“It’s a different feeling when you have somebody like Lawrence involved like that, it’s back to the old-school model, and to have the chance to be a shareholder and a partner is something that has never really been, or hasn’t been offered to me before.”

Newey will start at his new post in March 2025.

Charles Leclerc made his way back to the podium for the Italian Grand Prix after starting from fourth on the grid. The win marked Leclerc’s 2nd win of the season. Despite the Red Bulls and McLaren emerging at the front as the championship race leaders Ferrari has kept their foot in the discussion with finishes like these.

An ecstatic Leclerc stated, What an incredible feeling. The first time I won in Monza in 2019 was so emotional to both me and to our whole team, I didn’t think that winning here could ever feel like that again, but today, it did. Seeing our tifosi celebrating with us is just amazing and I am so glad that we could share this victory for a second time. Monaco and Monza were the two races I have always wanted to win, because they are so special to me.

A huge thank you to every single person in our team who made this happen today. You have done an incredible job to make this dream a reality and we can all be proud to have achieved this together. We had a perfectly executed strategy today and beat our competitors to it, and we will give everything to keep this momentum for the rest of the season, taking any opportunity we have.”

Words from Team Principal Fred Vasseur

What a mega result for the team! This is a real confidence booster for all of us and our tifosi who really made the difference this weekend. It was a very good race in which Charles drove incredibly well and I think we fully deserved this win. After qualifying, we were a bit disappointed, because we knew we had the potential to do very well. From the beginning of the season, I think we are probably in better shape on race pace than in qualifying and it was the case also today. Once again the execution was very good and we were able to turn things around. Last year tire management was our biggest weakness whereas now, I think it’s one of the advantages we have with this car.

It was already the case last week in Zandvoort and now we are quite consistent in terms of race pace to the point that we did think it might be a two stop but then we saw very low degradation in the second stint and we changed our strategy accordingly and Charles had the race under control all the time. It was a risk but sometimes you have to take risks and today it worked. We worked well as a team and we knew that Carlos could help if we did a one-stop with the two cars. He was also helping us with feedback on the tires because it’s important to have two opinions, two different sources of information and we were quite relaxed on this front.

The Red Bulls Are Falling Apart

Despite a healthy points lead in the constructors championship race early this season Red Bull find themselves scratching their heads after seeing McLaren once again take a large chunk of points out of their lead. Team Principal Christian Horner said, :“I think this circuit has exposed deficiencies that we have in the car versus last year, and I think that we have a very clear issue which has been highlighted this weekend and we know we have to get on top of and address [that], otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure. “I think on other [tracks], running more downforce perhaps hides some of the balance issues that we have, and you can see that we’ve got a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working.

“And as soon as you end up in that situation, you end up [where] you’re harder on tires, you end up compensating the balance around – to cure one problem you create another, so you just end up in a vicious circle. I think it’s been there for some time. I think actually, really going through the data, there [were] issues there at the beginning of the year in the characteristics. I think others have obviously made a step, and as we’ve pushed the package harder it’s exposed the issue.

“So even if you go back in the data, there were a few races last year where [it was there]. I think it’s a characteristic we have to address, and there’s full focus at the factory in Milton Keynes.”

Italian Grand Prix Race Results

In display of continued dominance, McLaren put both cars on the front row today in qualifying at Monza. Taking advantage of the struggle that continue to plague the Red Bulls, Lando Norris was able to secure yet another pole position. Its clear McLaren are the front runners now in Formula 1. No one seems to be able to match their pace despite the mid season break now past. Red Bull hold a 30 point lead in the championship which could look very different after this weekend if they can’t find a way forward on Sunday. The Red Bull’s finish P7 and P8.

After qualifying Norris said, “Another pole, which is amazing. To have the cars first and second when the field has been as tight as it has all weekend, it’s a little bit of a surprise, but a nice one. A big well done to the team as they’ve done an amazing job. “Honestly, my lap… It hurts me to say, it was not a great lap. My Q1 run one was, but run two [there] was a little bit more and we’re still good enough for pole. So, a little bit surprised again, but very, very happy.

Really, the same would be lovely. But like we’ve seen all weekend, it’s so close. There’s a lot of very quick drivers behind in quick cars, so I’m not expecting a very easy race tomorrow. There are a lot of unknown things going into the race with the degradation, the tires, the tarmac. Plenty of question marks and plenty of excitement, I’m sure.”

Full Monza Qualifying Results are Below

Due to Logan Sargeant’s continued struggles on the track the Williams F1 Team has decided to finally pull the plug. Logan Sargeant will be replaced by Franco Colapinto for the remainder of the 2024 F1 season. Colapinto is a young academy driver from the Williams side who ahs shown promise. Franco Colapinto said,

“It is an honor to be making my Formula 1 debut with Williams – this is what dreams are made of. The team has such amazing history and a mission to get back to the front which I can’t wait to be part of. Coming into F1 mid-season will be an enormous learning curve but I am up for the challenge, and I’m fully focused on working as hard as I can with Alex and the team to make it a success.”

Team Principal James Vowles Offer His Words

James Vowles, Team Principal said, “To replace a driver mid-season is not a decision we have taken lightly, but we believe this gives Williams the best chance to compete for points over the remainder of the season. We have just brought a large upgrade to the car and need to maximize every points-scoring opportunity in a remarkably tight midfield battle.

“We also believe in investing in our young drivers in the Williams Racing Driver Academy, and Franco is getting a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate what he is capable of across the final nine rounds of the season. This is undoubtedly incredibly tough on Logan, who has given his all throughout his time with Williams, and we want to thank him for all his hard work and positive attitude. Logan remains a talented driver and we will support him to continue his racing career for the future. I know that Franco has great speed and huge potential, and we look forward to seeing what he can do in Formula 1.”