Liam Lawson had a successful test with top Formula 4 team Van Amersfoort Racing and is one step closer to his aim of racing in this year’s German championship.
Lawson was one of four drivers who tested with team at the famous Zandvoort circuit, near the coast in Northern Holland.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s CEO, Rob Niessink said the young Kiwi impressed enough to be offered a place in the team’s lineup.
“Liam did a terrific job during these test days at Zandvoort. He impressed us not only with his raw speed straight out of the box, but also with his mature approach and feedback.
“If you take into account Zandvoort is a difficult track to be fast, he impressed us massively with an eye for the details as well as his ability to really attack the fast and challenging corners. A big achievement for a driver that has never visited this track before.
“We would welcome Liam in our team for the season and wish him all the best with finding the right partners to make this happen,” said Niessink.
Lawson ended the test days a mere 0.083-0f-a-second behind the team’s reference driver, fast Danish driver Fredik Vesti who raced competitively in the German series last year.
After finishing runner-up in the Australian Formula 4 championship last year, Lawson is eager to head to Europe and tackle what is regarded as the most challenging F4 series in the world.
Prior to testing at Zandvoort, Lawson spent two days on the team’s impressive race simulator and recorded the fastest time of the driver’s, setting a new simulator lap record for an F4 car on Zandvoort. Such is the technology of the simulator, drivers only use it when accompanied by their engineer.
“It was an absolutely amazing experience,” said Lawson.
“The simulator session were intense and I learnt a great deal from them before we hit the track for two days.
“The feel of the car and the power delivery is completely different to what I was used to in Australia, however within a couple of sessions I was on pace with the quickest VAR driver, so that was very encouraging,” added Lawson.
Meanwhile the 16-year-old is busy working on securing the funding to make the upcoming season a reality and would need to return to the Netherlands in a few weeks to commence pre-sesason testing on the German tracks that are used in the series,
The German Formula 4 championship begins on the weekend April 13-15th at Oscherleben. The series organisers also confirmed the cars will race as a supporting category to the Formula One race at Hockenheim in July.
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