How Lawson stated his case with a brilliant Brazilian weekend

For Liam Lawson the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend could hardly have gone any better, and the sight of a Racing Bulls car overtaking Lando Norris on the first lap to run in second place was something that nobody could have predicted.

While he would no doubt have liked to have finished higher up the order than the P7 that he ultimately earned, realistically it was never going to be easy to keep the cars from the four top teams behind him – even in a race impacted at both the start and finish by a damp track.

It was a superb P5 in Saturday’s Qualifying that set up Lawson’s strong race. Penalties for others promoted him to third on the grid, and from there a good start and a poor launch by Norris allowed him to get into second, behind only Kimi Antonelli.

However, his intermediates were soon past their best, and he dropped back behind Norris, Isack Hadjar, George Russell and Max Verstappen.

“I mean, crazy race,” he said. “Honestly, I had a really good start. Good grip in Turn 1. Obviously made up a place, and then to be honest, I was thinking I might try and attack Kimi at some point in the lap.

“But yeah, just once the pace stabilises, they're a lot quicker than us, and we started to pull back. We were damaging our tyre, I think, quite a lot more than them. And then I think the pace on the dry was okay.”

Lawson wasn’t the only driver to struggle as their intermediates got older in that opening stint, with Lewis Hamilton also falling away after his good opening run.

“I think it's a bit of graining,” said Lawson. “The problem is that you never know whether to push through the graining and try and wear it all off, or to try and look after the tyre and stop the graining."

“And when it's dry like this, you can't really do much. So for us, the graining started halfway through Lap 1, honestly. And I think for us, we were never really going to be able to keep those cars there anyway. So I'll go and review it, and see if there's something else I could have done.”

As the race progressed on slick tyres Lawson lost places to Oscar Piastri and a recovering Russell. When the rain returned in the closing laps he still had high hopes of hanging onto P7 on the road, but he lost out to a resurgent Charles Leclerc – who gave him a friendly nudge along the way.

“Then at the end, I tried to keep Charles there,” said Lawson. “We had some contact in [Turn] 12. I'll go and review it. I don't really know exactly what to say yet, but obviously I ended up losing the place.”

He also initially feared that he might pick up a puncture: “I think it was his wing that hit my tyre, so I think we got really lucky. I feel like it was exactly like his GP2 move in Abu Dhabi, on Albon years ago. He did the same kind of thing, so maybe it's his specialty. I don't know if it's legal or not! We'll obviously go and review it, but it was a good battle overall.”

The stewards duly decided it wasn’t legal, and gave Leclerc a penalty that promoted Lawson from his P8 at the flag back to P7.

“I feel like we maximised today,” Lawson continued. “I had a had a strong race. I would have liked it to stay wet the whole race. It would have been cool. I probably would have had more of a shot there. But at the moment, we're topping the midfield as a team, and that's what we're targeting every weekend.”

Indeed the points he earned have extended the healthy advantage Racing Bulls already had over Alpine in the battle for P5. However, he’s taking nothing for granted, despite the big gap.

“We've seen it before,” he said. “We had it here a few years ago with Alpine, so we're not going to settle until it's done. But we're in a great place. The car is very, very strong. A couple more races to go, so I'm excited to finish off the season.”

Regarding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the next round on the calendar, he added: “I think there we're expecting Alpine to be quite strong. They're very, very quick down the straights. So I imagine they'll be strong there. So yeah, let's see.”

Meanwhile, like everyone else, Lawson is awaiting firm news on the 2027 Racing Bulls line-up, with Nikola Tsolov waiting in the wings, and a decision promised soon by team boss Alan Permane.

“I appreciate all the support I'e seen over the last few weeks,” he said. “It's honestly really nice to see. Obviously, I would love it if it was more from a team! But at the moment, I'm just trying to enjoy driving the car because with everything else going on, I don't really know what else I'm meant to do.

“I don't know what else I'm meant to say to you guys. I'm just going to keep driving and yeah, see what happens. I feel like Alan's been extremely supportive to me, and I appreciate that a lot, and I have enjoyed working closely with them and with the team this year. But obviously it's a big organisation.”