F1 News: Former Driver Evaluates "Controversial" AlphaTauri Driver Lineup

Karun Chandhok evaluates and questions AlphaTauri's driver lineup for 2024.

Former driver and Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok looked back at AlphaTauri's decision to retain Yuki Tsunoda for 2024 alongside Daniel Ricciardo, considering the way reserve driver Liam Lawson outperformed the Japanese driver in his short but impactful run in Formula 1. 

Lawson took over Ricciardo's AlphaTauri seat at the Dutch Grand Prix after the Australian driver suffered a broken wrist in Free Practice. Little did the rookie driver know that he was about to receive the golden opportunity to prove himself in the premier class for five races. 

But Lawson didn't disappoint. He went on to give his best during race weekends, despite being new to the AT04 F1 car. What he did in Singapore surprised the entire grid, managing to get into Q3 by outperforming Tsunoda but he secured P9 in the Grand Prix, which was the best result the team had achieved so far. 

Though his fantastic run of races impressed several team bosses, the 21-year-old driver insisted that he is a Red Bull driver, and hence, he is willing to wait for his chance to race full-time with either of the two teams. 

Red Bull Press Image

Considering Lawson's delivery through the five races, Chandhok asked if AlphaTauri had made the right decision of retaining Tsunoda instead of the Red Bull reserve driver. He told on the Sky F1 podcast:

“He’s a slightly controversial one because there’s only four races as a dataset to look at.

“And you would argue that if you had only the first four races to look at, you’d have [Sergio] Perez as equal number one in the rankings.

“It is a bit tricky, but I know from my own experience how hard it is as a reserve driver to just jump in and get on with the job. I thought he did an extremely good job in high-pressure situations.

“He knew he had three or four opportunities to establish his credentials as a future Formula 1 driver and he did it.

“Being told just before qualifying in Singapore: ‘Sorry, sunshine, whatever you do for the rest of this year doesn’t matter: you’re not getting the drive next year’ – he literally got told minutes before getting in the car for one of the most difficult qualifying laps of the season where you have to have such a high level of concentration against the walls, no margin for error, and he got into Q3 and outqualified Yuki.

“To me, that alone was enough to underline his potential."

He continued:

“I thought across the five races he did [well] – and Zandvoort didn’t really count because the first lap he drove in the dry was in the grand prix.

“Actually, in the races he did a better job than Yuki, frankly.

“And when you compare Liam versus Yuki – and you compare Daniel versus Yuki – did Yuki really outperform Liam more than Daniel? Or, the other way round, did Daniel outperform Yuki more than Liam did? Probably not.

“So in some ways, you feel bad that Liam hasn’t got the nod for next year.

“There’s obviously commercial reasons, I understand, why they had to retain Yuki – but you do wonder whether Daniel and Liam would have been the more optimum lineup for them going into 2024.”