2019 FIA F3
Red Bull signed Liam to a seat with MP Motorsport for the debut season of the new FIA F3 halo-shod car, in a dual programme alongside Euroformula Open.
The season got off to a disastrous start at Barcelona with a throttle motor failure on the warm-up lap. The car lost all power and Liam was stranded in pit lane when the lights went green and the field raced away for the opening race of the season. He had already been hampered in qualifying when his car’s engine suffered two throttle control sensor failures and he qualified a lowly 19th.
Liam’s fortunes turned around at the next round with points scoring finishes in both races from P15 to 5th and 9th at Paul Ricard.
Hopes of an improving weekend at the Red Bull Ring in Austria were dashed when he struggled with an ill-handling race car. After qualifying in 15th place he made good progress over the opening laps of the first race and got inside the top ten. A mistake and then a bad vibration to his car dropped him back to finish the race in the same position that he started.
Race two didn’t get much better. He leapt from 15th and ran as high as 8th, but the front-wing to his car was damaged half-way through the race and a pit stop for a replacement dropped him a lap down at the finish.
His first top ten qualifying position came at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix meeting, 7th and just four-tenths away from the pole time. In Race 2 Liam delivered MP Motorsport their first podium with the new car, 3rd in Race 2.
Another top-ten finish came at Budapest before his best podium finish of the season at Monza. Liam was 7th in the first race of the weekend after starting from 14th, and that put him on the front row for the top-8 reverse grid race. 2nd place at Monza was his best finish of the season but not what he regarded as his best race. He saved that for last.
The season finale was held at Sochi, Russia, and Liam regards this as his best performance of the season. It will be remembered for his decisive last lap pass when he threaded through two cars to take 8th place, having started back in 18th.
In grabbing 8th he also took the last championship point on offer and finished the season with 42 points, 11th overall with 2 podiums to his credit and 8 top-ten finishes in 16 races.
