Liam Lawson jumped back into a Formula One car for the first time in over a year at the United States Grand Prix. The New Zealander is back with RB F1, formerly known as AlphaTauri, alongside his former teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
The weekend started out fairly disappointing with Lawson qualifying P15 during Sprint Qualifying, and finishing a place lower during the Sprint itself.
Qualifying was also not as exciting for the Kiwi with the team deciding not to let him complete a flying lap in Q2, despite placing third during Q1. This was due to the grid penalty because of engine component changes.
Lawson started the race from the back of the grid at P19 but managed to bring himself into points, ending the race in P9. Compared to Saturday, the car came a long way, surprising the 22-year-old.
He gained five places on lap one, took advantage of errors, overcut teammate Yuki Tsunoda, and passed Alonso and Gasly on track.
Magnussen’s two-stop strategy meant he ended up in 9th.
“The first lap was good. It was obviously carnage at turn one and I was just in a good place, managed to get around it.
“And then from there just settled in and the hard tyre worked really, really well for us.
“So yeah, big step with the car from yesterday which is really positive. It’s hard to do that in the weekend. From where you start it’s hard to really make a big step like that, and I think we did that because of how hard the guys worked on the car, so I’m very happy.”
Scoring his first points in his first appearance of the 2024 season has left Lawson hungry for more as he strives to prove himself in the remaining 5 races.
With Sergio Pérez looking far from safe at Red Bull, he will be pushing to produce more results to lock in his place on the grid, either at the senior team or with RB.
“Obviously [scoring points], it’s definitely important. Obviously, it’s also what I’m here to do.
“Obviously I’ve got a goal of staying in Formula One. I know these races are very important. So it’s doing exactly what I’m here to do.
“We have five more very important races as well to focus on.”
One of the highlights of the weekend were the on track battles between Lawson and 2-time F1 World Champion, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. The feud began after the Sprint race where Lawson attempted a daring overtake on Alonso, and then defending aggressively into turn 12, resulting in the Spaniard going on the radio to call the Kiwi an “idiot”.
When asked about how he felt about racing him again, Lawson said he was nice to him in their brief right as the RB was plain faster, and the 22-year-old admitted he can learn plenty from the 399-race starter.
“He was actually nice today, so I expected him to fight me a little bit more, but it was good. I think it was smart from both of us for that part of the race.
”It was very early on, and I think the hard was working for us quite well at that point. So obviously he’s very experienced, much more experienced than I am. There’s obviously things I can learn from him.
“I remember being a kid watching him on TV when I was racing go-karts and obviously somebody that I have a huge amount of respect for and what he’s done in Formula 1. So yeah, there’s things guys like him I can learn a lot off.”
Lawson admitted it was tricky physically following the 56-lap Grand Prix but was helped by the car handling nicely, and he expects the new few events to be tough for various reasons.
The 22-year-old added he’s been working hard on his physical fitness during his year-long break from racing competitively.
“Yeah, it was definitely tricky, but the car was working well. And when you have a car that’s doing exactly what you want it to do, it puts you in a good window for me.
“I’ve also been preparing pretty hard for this for the last 12 months. I knew that at some point the opportunity should come so training-wise we’ve been working very hard at being ready for it.
“There’s obviously quite a few tracks that I haven’t done before that are going to be tricky. Very challenging, physically challenging tracks as well, Sprint weekends like this. So it’s going to be challenging.
“I think this weekend was potentially the hardest, so to get it out of the way and being in a comfortable place with the car is important.”
