{"id":299108,"date":"2023-05-22T01:38:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T01:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=299108"},"modified":"2023-05-22T04:00:29","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T04:00:29","slug":"kiwi-star-emerges-as-top-contender-to-replace-f1-rookie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=299108","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi star emerges as top contender to replace F1 rookie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1<\/a> rookie Nyck De Vries will be sweating on his seat at AlphaTauri after one of Red Bull's<\/a> favourite junior drivers put in a performance for the ages.<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson won his second Super Formula race in four outings, taking the points lead in the Japanese single-seater series.<\/p>\n

After dominating the season-opener at Fiji Speedway, the New Zealander had to work hard for his second win at Autopolis.<\/p>\n

AS IT HAPPENED:<\/strong> 2023 State of Origin teams<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Eight new faces named in Freddy's Blues squad<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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READ MORE:<\/strong> Sharks star told to 'pack his bags and leave'<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A decisive call to pit early from third in the 41-lap race to undercut the leaders looked like it mightn't pay dividends after he struck traffic.<\/p>\n

\"Liam<\/p>\n

However, the 21-year-old managed to scythe his way through and bring the gap down to the leaders before they pitted.<\/p>\n

The undercut proved successful as Lawson came out ahead of early race leader Sho Tsuboi and Ritomo Miyata.<\/p>\n

Lawson initially held off a hard-charging Tsuboi before the safety car was deployed for an incident.<\/p>\n

At the head of the field, the Team Mugen driver worried he would be a sitting duck with Tsuboi and Miyata on fresher tyres.<\/p>\n

\"Liam<\/p>\n

In the end, Lawson survived an eight-lap dash to the finish despite being at a tyre disadvantage, leaving Tsuboi and Miyata to fight over second place.<\/p>\n

The win comes at a time when speculation is rife that AlphaTauri incumbent De Vries is on the brink of bombing out of F1.<\/p>\n

From five races to date, De Vries is yet to score a point and has a season-best finish of 14th in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Asked about the significance of his win amid the speculation, Lawson played a straight bat.<\/p>\n

\"Nyck<\/p>\n

"It's good timing in the sense it puts me in the lead of the championship, and that's what I am thinking about at the moment," Lawson told Motorsport.com.<\/p>\n

"I want to finish the year and fight for the championship, and that will give me the best opportunity for next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"In terms of what's happening (in F1)… it's completely outside of my control. I am just happy to win today."<\/p>\n

\"Nyck<\/p>\n

Super Formula is considered the fastest single-seater series outside of F1 and is highly rated by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko.<\/p>\n

Marko sent Pierre Gasly to the series off the back of winning the GP2 Series (now Formula 2) before promoting him to an F1 seat with the then-known Toro Rosso.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the ill-fated Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Marko said Lawson is his preferred pick should De Vries be deposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It's a blow for Daniel Ricciardo<\/a> and his hopes of an F1 return with Red Bull or its sister team AlphaTauri.<\/p>\n

The F1 season continues on May 26-28 with the Monaco Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 rookie Nyck De Vries will be sweating on his seat at AlphaTauri after one of Red Bull's favourite junior drivers put in a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":299110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299108"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299115,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299108\/revisions\/299115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/299110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}