Liam Lawson endured a weekend to forget in Australia, crashing out of his debut race for Red Bull Racing.
The Kiwi driver never recovered from missing out on third practice in Melbourne, which put him on the back foot for the rest of the weekend.
Lawson was given the nod to step up alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull this year, having shown potential during his two short stints at Racing Bulls over the past two seasons.
The goal for Lawson is to provide strong backup for Verstappen in his quest for the Drivers’ Championship, with the rookie driver expected to score regular points and help Red Bull’s bid for the Constructors’ Championship – something the now departed Sergio Perez couldn’t do last season.
But Lawson’s first weekend for the Milton Keynes-based squad couldn’t have gone much more off the rails. A subdued opening day saw him well off the pace of Verstappen in practice, while a power unit issue on his car prevented him from taking part in third practice.
Given his lack of experience at Albert Park, a circuit at which he’d never driven before, this further reduction of preparation time proved a hindrance too great for Lawson, who was knocked out in Q1 as he made errors by running into the gravel at Turn 3 and slip-sliding his way through the third sector on his final flying lap.
Consigned to a pitlane start as Red Bull opted to make setup changes to his RB21, Lawson toiled away towards the back for most of the Grand Prix. A beacon of hope was illuminated when Red Bull took a gamble on leaving him out on dry tyres as the rain began to fall, with Lawson climbing into the points, but just moments later, his race came to an end as he lost control and spun off backward into the barriers.
It had been a weekend to forget, and Sky F1 broadcaster Martin Brundle believes the rookie will be very glad another race weekend is beginning almost immediately to offer him the chance to right some wrongs.
“Liam Lawson of Red Bull, in particular, will be very happy that we head immediately into another race week,” the former Grand Prix driver wrote in his column for Sky F1.
“So that he can hopefully park the misery and errors he endured in Melbourne and put them right.”
Red Bull, who are known for their propensity for replacing struggling drivers during a season, are right in their stance of being tough on drivers, Brundle said, with Lawson simply having to produce the goods pretty quickly if he’s to hold onto his seat.
“That team doesn’t do cuddles and reassuring words, and nor should they at this level,” Brundle said.
“P45s are more their thing if you can’t keep Verstappen at least in view from time to time.”
Lawson may have been the choice for Red Bull to make an informed decision on for this season but, unlike his predecessor Sergio Perez, doesn’t have the benefit of a proven track record behind him – meaning the pressure will be on him to respond in the not-too-distant future.
Helmut Marko, Red Bull advisor, said the first quarter of the season will offer a good clue into the direction of Lawson’s progress.
“He wanted to show what he can do,” Marko said, “and unfortunately that went wrong. We have to let him cool down a bit now and observe his development over the first three to five races.”
That development will come, according to Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who said Australia was not indicative of Lawson’s level – pointing out how he had shown a lot of speed when things started to come together for him.
“It was a difficult weekend for him,” Horner said. “We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at.
“We took a risk of leaving him out because he was outside of the points, and we thought, ‘You know what, roll the dice, maybe it’ll come right,’ but it was exactly the point that it started to rain more. So it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin.
“I think the one flash of light that he can take out of it is that, on the dry tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the grand prix, a 1:22.9. Max did a 1:23.0, Lando a 1:22.1.
“So, if there was one positive we can take, it’s that his pace in the dry was not too bad.
“The problem is, having missed FP3, you’re on the back foot, and then the pressure builds. He grabbed a brake on the second set of tyres and then, on the third set of tyres, he was half a second up and then another mistake there.
“So I think next weekend will be tough because it’s a Sprint race at a track that he’s not been to before. But, yeah, he’s pretty resilient to this. This weekend, it wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”
With this weekend’s race in Shanghai only giving the drivers a single session to acclimatise before the Sprint event begins, Lawson said he’s eager to get on with the next round as he admitted there’s “not much” by way of positives to take from his Red Bull debut.
“Honestly, I’m just looking forward to going to China and resetting,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s something that I’ve been through plenty of times before in my career and, fortunately, we have just a few days off.
“China is a Sprint weekend, so it’s gonna be tough in itself. But, yeah, I’m just excited to go into another weekend.”
