Liam Lawson will start the United States Grand Prix next month with an unfortunate handicap with VCARB set to take a new power unit, giving him a 10-place grid penalty.

The New Zealander’s return to the F1 grid was confirmed on Thursday with Daniel Ricciardo making way for the final six races of the 2024 campaign. Lawson is then expected to return full-time in 2025.

The 22-year-old will face an uphill battle when he takes to the grid in Austin in October. “The first [race], I think, won’t be relevant because he has an engine penalty,” Helmut Marko told Autosport. “10 places in the sprint race, so that doesn’t exactly make life easier in Austin.”

Lawson has been forced to wait for his chance to shine. The Hastings-born racer impressed in his five-race stint deputising for Ricciardo in 2023 and many expected him to drive full-time for VCARB in 2024, but he was resigned to a test and reserve role instead.

Now, he is back in the spotlight. While the rest of the F1 community was shocked by the rumours regarding Ricciardo’s future in Singapore, Lawson already knew that his return to the grid was beckoning.

“Obviously I knew about it for the last sort of two weeks,” he explained after Thursday’s announcement. “But until it’s out there to the world it obviously doesn’t really feel set and it’s not like I could tell anybody.”

He added: “It had been the plan for a long time now, this was sort of where it was leading at least. Obviously, I had a contract date that needed to be sort of fulfilled.

“So basically it was always going towards this way and then a couple of weeks ago they told me this was what was going to happen and not long after that it was set in stone.”

The 22-year-old now has a unique opportunity to demonstrate his viability as a long-term replacement for Sergio Perez. The Mexican has flattered to deceive over the past 18 months and Christian Horner and Red Bull would welcome the competition that an in-form Lawson would offer.