Everything to know about Liam Lawson as he replaces Ricciardo

After sustaining a break of the metacarpal in his hand, Daniel Ricciardo is out of the remainder of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend and will be replaced by Liam Lawson.

New Zealand-native Lawson is a member of the famed Red Bull junior driver programme, and has been racing in Japan's Super Formula this season.

He is on-site at Zandvoort, and will become just the 10th Kiwi to make a Grand Prix start after the likes of Bruce McLaren, 1967 champion Denny Hulme and Brendon Hartley.

Here is everything you need to know about Lawson as he gears up to become the 16th driver from the Red Bull junior programme to drive in F1.

Who is Liam Lawson?

Born on 11th February 2002, Lawson is to become only the third driver to be born in the 21st century to race in F1 after new teammate Yuki Tsunoda and Williams racer Logan Sargeant.

After climbing through the junior ranks in New Zealand and Australia, winning the 2016/17 New Zealand Formula Ford 1600 title with 14 wins from 15 races (and being second in the other), Lawson moved to Europe to race in the 2018 ADAC F4 championship.

The likes of Mercedes junior Frederik Vesti and Ralf Schumacher's son David competed with Lawson finishing runner-up as he graduated to FIA F3 for 2019.

A two-year spell yielded three wins and fifth place in 2020 as the step to FIA F2 was made for 2021 with Hitech Grand Prix.

On his debut, he emulated Lando Norris's 2018 feat of winning on debut in Bahrain, but took only two more podiums across the season before a switch to Carlin for 2022.

This earned him four Sprint race wins and third place in the standings, but over 100 points behind champion Felipe Drugovich.

For 2023, Lawson headed out to Japan and Super Formula and is in title contention.

He is currently eight points behind leader Ritomo Miyata with the double-header finale set for Suzuka at the end of October.

Lawson's F1 chances

This weekend's Dutch Grand Prix will not be the first time Lawson has driven F1 machinery.

Lawson was viewed as second in line behind Juri Vips for the reserve/test driver role at Red Bull/AlphaTauri - with the Estonian taking Sergio Perez's car in practice for the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix.

However, social media comments from Vips saw him lose his Red Bull backing and Lawson was promoted to 'next cab off the rank.'

Lawson got behind the wheel of the AlphaTauri in Belgium and Mexico as the team fulfilled their mandatory rookie driver slots.

At the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he also replaced World Champion Max Verstappen in the first practice session before going onto drive the title-winning RB18 in the post-season test at Yas Marina.