With a shot at title glory for Teams’ Champion in Abu Dhabi, Liam Lawson is eager to end the season on a high.
Although the title fight was wrapped up last time out in Monza, where MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich got crowned as champion from the sidelines, Lawson is still hopeful to finish higher from the standings with only 12 points separating him from his teammate, Logan Sargeant, in third.
Despite taking three impressive Sprint Race wins and five podiums this season, Lawson is yet to secure his first Feature Race win, which he almost did in Monza—having missed out on the pole by just 0.126s.
The Kiwi’s day went from bad to worse after his duel with Hitech’s Juri Vips ended in disaster. He fell further down the order to P13 for front wing damage he sustained in the spin.
However, reminiscing about his first Formula One outings with Alpha Tauri last year in the same venue, Lawson is optimistic about completing his second season in F2 on the top step.
“I’m very excited for the last weekend of the season, finishing the year on a high is obviously the goal.” Said Lawson,
“It’s a track I really like. I enjoy driving here, I had my first F1 experience here, so it’s got good memories.”
Four teams are still in a chance of taking the title home, with MP Motorsport scoring the same 281 points as the ART Grand Prix. Despite being slightly outside of shots for the title, the sun-blasted Yas Marina circuit is one of Carlin‘s prime hunting grounds.
The British team has consistently been in the fight for points and podiums across their previous appearances in Formula 2. They have a history of conquering the circuit, as both 2018 Vice-Champion Lando Norris and Nobuharu Matsushita claimed second under their name.
Last year was their best result on the 2.360 km track when Jehan Daruvala claimed a victory in the first Sprint Race, in which Lawson feels confident to provide a better result this weekend.
He stated, “It’s a cool place, and we had a pretty good test here last year, so we know where to start with the car,
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t end with a great couple of races, it hasn’t been the season that we wanted, but we can still finish strongly.”
Aside from looking forward to taking his first Feature Race victory with 25 points on the table, Lawson is set to step up for the newly crowned champion Max Verstappen in the first free practice session, which will be his first outing for Red Bull Racing.
