Is Lawson driving his last F1 race for now: 'My focus is still here'

Upgrades are working at AlphaTauri

According to Tsunoda, his team's recent upgrades have brought a lot better performance. "We showed a bit of a performance improvement from the upgrades we brought, especially in qualifying. I think the upgrades are working, and they gave me more confidence to fight, but I think we may need a couple more races to finally estimate their value because Singapore and Suzuka are completely different tracks. If we perform well in Qatar, that will confirm the effectiveness of the upgradess," said the Japanese ahead of the Qatar race weekend.

"It’s very flat, and aero efficiency is very important for the many high-speed corners. It will be a physically demanding race, and tyre degradation will be an important factor. You need to balance your aero between being fast and having enough downforce so that you don’t slide too much in the corners and damage the tyres. Overtaking is possible at this track, so it will be important to get a good idea of long run pace, but of course, we only have one Free Practice session with the Sprint format this weekend. I’m not too worried about car performance as it was good for qualifying in Suzuka, and we understand why we could not perform as well as we wanted to in the race in Japan, so we can take that experience to do better in Qatar."

Is Lawson entering his last F1 weekend of 2023?

Liam Lawson is also still the replacement for the injured Daniel Ricciardo in Qatar. However, it does appear that this will be the last Grand Prix weekend of 2023 for the New Zealander. Lawson is also unlikely to drive in 2024, as the Red Bull Racing junior was given a reserve role for next season.

"In Japan, the news came public that I’m back to the role of reserve driver next year. Obviously, my goal is to be in Formula 1 full-time, so as much as it’s disappointing, it’s still my goal, and it’s now about trying to make sure that I can make that happen in the future. Right now, I’ve still got this opportunity to keep trying to show something, and I’ll try to make the most of it. For now, as long as this lasts, I’ll focus on it," Lawson told reporters ahead of the weekend in Qatar.

Whether Lawson will be able to score points for the second time in Qatar, he is not so sure yet. "Now we move on to Qatar. I’m not sure how we'll get on there or how the upgrades will work. I think it’s hard to say because where we struggled in Japan was mainly in the high speed, in Sector 1. We still have more to learn about our new package, and I’m not so sure that Qatar is the type of circuit that will suit our car."