After scoring two points in Austin, Liam Lawson surely hoped to keep his momentum going and secure another points finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
However, the red flag brought out by his teammate in Q2 squashed his chances of making it through to the final segment of qualifying, and the New Zealander came home in sixteenth place on Sunday.
Furthermore, he managed to embroil himself in several controversies as he ignored blue flags while getting lapped and clashed with Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez during the race.
Lawson came to blows with Pérez on lap 19 at turn 4, where he kept his nose in and collided with the RB20 after the Mexican driver had pushed him wide during an attempted overtake.
Although Pérez managed to keep the young Kiwi behind for the rest of the lap, the RB eventually sailed past him on the main straight. The frustrated 22-year-old gave Pérez the bird as he overtook him—a moment that was captured on camera.
Lawson found himself on the receiving end of some sharp comments from Pérez following the incident, and he ultimately apologised to the six-time race winner for his crude gesture.
In his media session ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix, he nonetheless maintained that his aggressive style of racing won’t change regardless of the contentious nature of their battle.
Adding that he is keen to learn from his mistakes, Lawson confessed that he doesn’t wish to antagonise fellow drivers on the grid. Simultaneously, he remarked that he is not eager to befriend anybody since his only goal is to reach the top step of the podium.
“My attitude towards racing and how I approach races in Formula 1 won’t change, that’s how I’ll always be.
“But at the same time there’s things in there, if I make mistakes I’ll always learn from them, and clearly in Mexico I made a mistake, and I’ll learn from it.
“Briefly we spoke after the race, but at the same time we left the track very early, immediately afterwards anyway. I think it was an on-track fight and I apologise obviously for what I did after the incident.
“But in terms of the fight we had on track, it was, I guess, deemed as a racing incident and something that was an in-the-moment battle.
“I’ll learn from, maybe, mistakes that I made. But at the same time, I’ll take advice from everybody I can and my target is not to go out and make enemies with anybody, that’s not the goal obviously, but at the same time I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win.”
Amidst speculations that Lawson might be in contention for the second Red Bull seat due to the massive slump in performance that Pérez is experiencing, veteran advisor Helmut Marko, in his column for Speedweek, revealed that the New Zealander is meeting the high expectations they have set for him.
“The duel with Liam Lawson, both drivers were too impetuous. Liam even gave his opponent the finger, for which he later apologised, which we accepted.
“[He] came back very strongly in the USA and finished ninth, and I was also impressed by the way he steadily improved in Mexico. The New Zealander would have finished in the top 10 in qualifying if it hadn’t been for the lap that [Yuki] Tsunoda messed up.
“So far, Liam Lawson has proven his qualities and confirmed the trust placed in him.”
Having waited to speak with Christian Horner following the race in Mexico City, Lawson was asked to shed some light on how his conversation with the Red Bull team principal went and whether there were any further discussions with Marko since the scrap with Pérez.
Insisting that he doesn’t expect the Red Bull management to coax him into changing his approach to racing, Lawson nevertheless admitted that he should’ve been more cautious while battling another Red Bull car since their tussle compromised both their races massively.
“I don’t think they want me to race differently.
“But obviously the target is not to make contact with another Red Bull car, and as I said at the time it wasn’t my intention in the moment, and looking back maybe I could have avoided it and clearly that would have been the right thing to do at the time.”
