“We tested together somewhere – [it] might have been Hockenheim in Germany – and I remember seeing him walking around in his Red Bull suit, and I remember thinking that was so cool and how cool it would be to be a Red Bull Junior.
“And yeah, I got the call-up after that first weekend in New Zealand. I found out one or two days after the weekend.”
Reflecting further on the moment that he received the call, Lawson admitted that it proved to be incredibly surreal.
“I was sitting in a café, I remember exactly where I was sitting,” he continued. “And I remember I couldn’t walk, it was real strange. I got told and I was like… I was pretty emotional but I remember I was like, ‘dude, I’m going to go for a walk’, and I couldn’t really walk properly, it was super weird!
“But [to get signed was] a big achievement. Long story short, being from New Zealand, trying to compete overseas, it’s really, really hard. To get the money to compete overseas is really, really hard.
“So we set out in New Zealand between a group of amazing people that have been behind me – sponsors and investors – we set up this structure to basically get enough money to go to Europe and do a season and try and get recognised by a junior team, because without it there was no chance of getting into Formula 1.