Liam Lawson: My greatest influences

15 July 2022

We caught up with Liam Lawson to talk about who has inspired and motivated him on and off the racetrack. The New Zealander reveals some of his favourite stories behind the key figures who supported him throughout his journey from karting to Formula 2.

HIS DAD

“He’s been one of my greatest heroes since I was a kid. None of my family raced, I wasn’t brought into karting or early racing through a family member, it was just something that I wanted to do since I was born. My dad basically got me a go-kart and had to learn everything from scratch - how to run the kart, how to work on the engine, how to help me learn to drive as well because he didn’t have a clue. Then all through my entire career, he worked extremely hard to keep me racing.

“When I was a kid at the time, you just listen to what your dad tells you. He’d tell me something and I’d listen to it, to the point where we’d go out on a day where it was already wet, and he would stand on a corner at he’d tell me ‘you have to brake where I’m standing’ so I’d brake where he was standing. Then every lap he would take a step forward and forward until I would go so far up into the track and then he’d take a step back and that would be how I learnt to brake – things like that where he was just learning on the go.

“It was a bit strange actually. When I got older, sort of early teens and started racing for proper teams and I wasn’t working with so closely with him anymore. Also, I think he struggled with having to stand back and let other people take over. He still wants to be involved. My coach gets a thousand texts every race. While one of my coaches is with me watching, my dad is back in New Zealand on the phone trying to give advice or be as involved as he can be, which is cool.”

RICHIE STANAWAY

“As a kid growing up, I liked watching Lewis Hamilton. He was my hero, I read his book and I used to watch him and Formula 1 from around 2010 onwards. But as I got older and understood more about racing, Formula One and stuff like that and the junior categories like GP2 and GP3, I started to watch the New Zealand drivers a lot more and I think Richie Stanaway was somebody who I just wanted to be like. I watched him driving for Status Grand Prix and was really impressed by it, liked the way he drove. He was my favourite and the guy I wanted to be like. My coach now actually worked with him as well!

“He was good, he was fast, he was aggressive. He was very good in the rain as well; I just liked the way he raced. When I was 12/13 years old, I entered this racing scholarship in New Zealand called the Speed Sport Scholarship and it's how I went from go karts into early entry-level race cars. The day that I won the scholarship - overnight because of the time difference - Richie had just won the GP2 Sprint Race in Monte Carlo and there was a photo of him on the podium they’d had printed up and put it for us there in the morning, which was so cool.”

KENNY SMITH

“He’s someone I met when I was very, very young. He’s a New Zealand driver and he’s 80 years old now and still races. The last two New Zealand Grand Prix I did in the Toyota Racing Series; he was racing in the TRS car – he's still very good as well. When I was a kid, probably about 12 years old and I’d just started racing entry level Formula First cars, I met him properly and started to spend a lot of time with him.

“Some days instead of going to school, I would go to Kenny’s workshop and just spend the day with him basically, hanging out and talking about cars! He was a huge mentor to me and helped me get from New Zealand to Australia. I started racing in Formula 4 in Australia and he came to all the races with me. It wasn’t until when I eventually made the jump to Europe where he wasn’t able to come with me anymore.

“I think it’s very important, especially when you're young, to have someone just giving you the right advice. It's easy to obviously get advice from lots of people, listen to so many different people and sort of get a little bit lost, but I was lucky that I had a couple of really important people that we just basically stuck with and kept listening to. I was lucky to have that with Kenny and with the rest of my support group that grew over recent years and that’s the only reason that I've been able to make this journey.

“I’d love to be racing at 80 years old! That would definitely be the goal. It’s very impressive as well, he’s absolutely still got it. Earlier this year he fell off a ladder and he massively injured himself because he's an idiot. Also, it would be really cool to race together. There's a couple of races in New Zealand that we have like the 24 Hours of Lemons, it's basically just cheap cars – we call them lemons - and you just race around for 24 hours and I'd like to do something like that with Kenny.”