I think it's time to talk about Liam Lawson
Also discussing something Jolyon said about "why does McLaren keep developing junior drivers then dropping them?"
I'd been thinking this for a while but I think after the stories around Hadjar signing for Red Bull next year, it's time to address my theory on why Liam was never going to be considered for the main team again.
First of all, I want to start by saying that this is no hate to Liam or anyone else I discuss. Anything negative is not a personal attack on him it's just criticism that I feel is valid to make on his driving.
So let's start by saying that I was incredibly impressed (like many others) by Liam's 2023 subbing in for Daniel and I was all for Liam replacing Daniel. However, when comparing his 2024 to his 2023 races. I felt he'd already deteriorated as a driver. Now we can blame any number of things but I'm sticking by what I say and keeping it as simple as that.
Following that obviously he was bumped up into Red Bull, imo far too early and far to inexperienced. I knew the moment they announced it that it was be a similar situation to Gasly's Red Bull stint and actually it was worse and they handled the whole thing even worse. Personally I blame Horner entirely for this, I think he was ridiculous to even try and put Liam in that seat so quickly especially when they knew the car had become undriveable.
It's important to note that Checo was a significantly more experienced and imo higher quality driver who struggled in that RB20, even Max defended Checo without hesitation and criticised the car. So anyone who believed Liam was going to do better simply wasn't paying attention.
Liam clearly took a big hit in his confidence in that short stint at Red Bull and with the demotion (or promotion given he got into the nicer car to drive in RB) and it took him a while to adapt. He's had some massively improved results which are much more reflective of the driver we were all hoping to see in Red Bull. But he's also not very good at wheel to wheel racing and while in certain situations he's not at fault, there's no denying he's a frequent problem when it comes to costing himself or others damage in races. Sometimes he's hitting the same drivers multiple times in a race before and after pitstops.
Personally, I've always viewed Liam as Red Bulls last resort. He was never a priority or even really spoken about in media to get on the grid until he subbed for Daniel and looked really good. But I think if that had never happened, Red Bull never would've put him in a seat at any point. They've been watching Hadjar who was always impressive in the junior series, they've been grooming Lindblad and realistically speaking there was other options beyond Checo for that second seat.
Liam is not a bad driver, but is he driver that I would say has really continued to impress? No, not really. He's sort of mediocre, pulls in some points, but has been massively outscored by his much less experienced teammate and often costs the team points with his on track squabbling and damage to his car.
And now it looks like he's stuck, or if he's not stuck he's not looking at a bright future in F1. I think he's made a lot of enemies on the grid too which doesn't do well for prospects in other teams. I do have a feeling his time is limited in F1 and he won't be a driver who is around for long. I could be wrong, Red Bull might keep him in that RB seat for a few years till another team picks him up like they did for Gasly but Gasly's stint in Red Bull was at least somewhat off the back row and he then went on to win a race in AlphaTauri (as it was at the time in 2020).
This weekend in Singapore while rumours of Hadjar signing are looking more and more likely to be true. I'm not sure if Liam's messiness on track is a result of him possibly processing the emotions of being rejected while Hadjar moves forward and is more likely to maintain the Red Bull seat for longer than Liam did. But I do think if he doesn't clean up and really improve on his wheel to wheel racing then he might find himself unemployed from the F1 world.
Moving on to Alex Dunne and the McLaren junior driver programme.
Jolyon was talking about how McLaren and Alex Dunne parted ways and he was saying he doesn't understand why McLaren keep doing this. Even commenting on how Gabi was a McLaren driver but left to go to Sauber (Audi).
But am I the only one who feels like the answer is so painfully obvious?
McLaren have a young driver line up that they are very VERY happy with. It sounds harsh but they aren't going to replace one of the two title contending drivers with a wild card rookie who might fuck up winning the constructors (which is all McLaren cares about, they couldn't even care less about the drivers they just want the team win) bc rookies do make mistakes, they take time to adapt.
Even if we look at Kimi, he's in an incredible car (better than people want to admit tbh) but he's made mistakes and it's cost the team. It's not always his fault, mechanical DNFs have hit him hard but he's crashed quite a few times of his own doing as rookies do and shit happens.
Anyway, the junior programmes are to train and prepare the drivers. McLaren aren't just going to say "we're happy with our line up so lets just stop the junior programme"...their goal is to make as many of their junior drivers F1 drivers on the grid. Meaning yes, they have to put them into other teams.
We already know that McLaren helped Gabi a lot to get the Sauber seat, also probably aided by being under Fernando's driving management company. Now by reports that I've seen McLaren did offer Alex driver positions within the team, obviously not a seat bc both drivers are signed for multi year contracts and they're not going to pay them out of the contracts for very good reason. But understandably Alex doesn't want to get stuck as a background driver, so he was unhappy with those offers.
From what I've seen I'd say it's more likely that Alex possibly gave McLaren a bit of a dramatic exit in rejecting their offers and that's why the announcement of him leaving isn't at the end of the year but instead a few races before the end. McLaren aren't likely to have wanted to end mid-season, it would make no sense for them. Alex on the other hand, if he felt scorn, unappreciated or had an offer from another team that held more promise of a seat sooner, then he would leave with immediate effect.
Anyway my point is, Jolyon showed a serious lack of critical thinking skills in his question. The answer of why does McLaren keep letting junior drivers go to other teams is because they don't have the seats to offer to the junior drivers and other teams possibly do...
