RB told me two weeks ago I would replace Ricciardo · RaceFans

Liam Lawson says he has known for the past two weeks he would make his return to Formula 1 in the next race in Austin.

RB announced today Lawson will replace Daniel Ricciardo in their line-up with immediate effect.

During the Singapore Grand Prix weekend team principal Laurent Mekies said there was “nothing decided so far” regarding their plans for the rest of the year. However Lawson said he knew before the last two races that he would take Ricciardo’s place.

“It now finally does feel real, obviously I knew about it for the last, probably, two weeks, but until it’s out there to the world, it obviously doesn’t ever really feel set in stone,” he told the New Zealand Herald. “I couldn’t tell anybody.”

“It had been the plan for a long time now, where this was where I was leading,” he added. “Obviously I had a contract date that needed to be fulfilled so basically it was going towards this way, and then a couple of weeks ago they told me this is what was going to happen. And then basically not long after that, it was set in stone.”

Lawson, who stood in for Ricciardo in five races last year, said it did not feel good to be in the RB garage in Singapore last weekend under the circumstances.

“Singapore was definitely not an enjoyable weekend for me just because obviously we all knew what was coming,” he said. “At the same time, Daniel has always been very good to me in a lot of ways when I drove last year.

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“Even this season, he’s always been somebody that I’ve never felt in competition with him or anything like that. He never made it feel like that.

“So it wasn’t a nice feeling. But obviously this for me is, I get one shot at F1 and it’s come now and I’m obviously grateful for that opportunity. But now I need to take it with both hands. And at the same time, he said the same thing to me and he said ‘you know you need to you need to make the most of it’.”

Mekies eventually indicated on Sunday night “this may have been Daniel’s last race.” Lawson said he has “a huge amount of respect for how he dealt with everything because I can’t really imagine that.

“It’s a similar position I was in last year, but obviously the guy is just a lot more public, a lot more famous than I am. So he’s getting a lot of questions and trying to sidestep those he did a very good job.”