Lawson “very happy” to score points in “near-perfect” Belgian GP

Liam Lawson delivered a “near-perfect” drive in the Belgian Grand Prix to claim his third top-ten finish of the season, battling shifting conditions and tyre gambles to secure eighth place in Alan Permane’s first race as Racing Bulls Team Principal.

On a day where torrential rain forced a lengthy delay and added uncertainty to every strategic call, Lawson kept his cool to hold steady when it mattered most, ending the day content despite the “tricky” conditions.

“Yeah, very happy,” the Kiwi said.

“Very happy for the guys and girls, it was a tough race.”

Hot on his teammate’s heels through Eau Rouge when the race got underway, Lawson gave Isack Hadjar no breathing room during the damp rolling start conditions, instantly setting his sights on more.

Five laps of racing down and five-tenths apart, the RB teammates were locked in a fierce early battle, dropping the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto as the track edged towards the crossover point for slick tyres.

On Lap 12, the moment arrived for the Kiwi when he was called in for his first and only pitstop of the day, making the switch from the intermediate tyre to the dry medium compound.

“It’s always tricky when you have to cross over onto a dry tyre when it’s damp,” the #30 said.

“And I feel like it was quite early today, like I, to be honest, didn’t feel like it was ready, but we made the call and by that point, I think Lewis [Hamilton] had already done one or two laps on a dry tyre.

“So yeah, tricky to survive that stint, and then from there the car was really fast.”

Lawson soon found himself in the company of the Ferrari driver, who was charging his way through the field, spurred on by his annoyance from a disappointing Qualifying session on Saturday.

The two came within centimetres of contact as Hamilton, aided by the slipstream effect on the Kemmel Straight, made a move to pass Lawson, putting his front wing in harm’s way when the Kiwi tried to defend the inevitable.

Settling into P8, the Sauber duo enacted team orders in their attempt to move higher into the points, with Bortoleto again the driver tasked with making up ground on the #30 after Nico Hulkenberg lacked the required pace to hunt Lawson down.

The Brazilian couldn’t make an impression on the growing interval, however, leaving Lawson on his lonesome for the remainder of a race that turned out to be quite stagnant for the Racing Bulls driver.

Thrilled to hold on to eighth place after his teammate had developed a power-related issue on Lap 8 that lasted “basically the whole race”, Lawson crossed the line 4.4 seconds clear of the Sauber driver to add four points to his and RB’s season total.

After 13 rounds, the Kiwi sits 14th in the Drivers’ Championship on 16 points, level with both Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz following his third points-scoring result of the season.

Racing Bulls also made gains in the Constructors Championship to now sit on 41 points, just two points shy of Sauber in their five-way fight for P6. 

“I think it’s been a case where… I think the results have come and that’s great,” Lawson said.

“I think the pace has been there for a while, honestly, but yeah, it’s nice to have a couple of results, we just need to keep rolling.

“Obviously, one more until the break, and it would be nice to finish this first part of the year on another good race.”

Sharing his thoughts on his first Grand Prix outing as Racing Bulls Team Principal, Alan Permane talked through the highs and lows of his first points haul in his new leadership position.

“First of all, we have to apologise to Isack, he had a problem with his car that we could see from around Lap 8, causing him a loss of straight-line speed and costing him a lot of time over the course of the race,” he said.

“It’s a shame because he had a great car all weekend and great pace, so if it wasn’t for that, I’m sure it would have been a very different result. 

“Liam had a near-perfect race, he managed his tyres exceptionally well, both on the intermediates and on the dry tyre. 

“He was strong and able to comfortably pull away from Bortoleto behind and was very happy with the car overall.”

Permane added: “There are only a few days to reflect on this race as we’re quickly onto Budapest with a very different track and a very different downforce level. 

“It’ll be much hotter, and we’ve got different tyres, but we expect our car to perform well there, and we will have our usual target of getting both our cars into Q3 and in the points.”

Having to quickly put the mixed emotions of the third Sprint weekend of the season behind them, Racing Bulls’ focus immediately jumps ship to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

Running across August 01-03, the conventional format returns with the first of three practice sessions kicking off at 21:30 AEST on Friday.

Image: Sam Bloxham/LAT Images // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool.

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