Lawson lays foundation in chaotic F1 debut

By Christopher Reive

Liam Lawson has had an eventful introduction to Formula One racing.

Making his debut for AlphaTauri at the Dutch Grand Prix in a race where wet weather caused havoc on a number of occasions, Lawson kept his cool to finish in 13th – an improvement of six places from his starting spot on the grid.

Lawson became the 10th Kiwi to compete in a Formula One race after he was a late call-up to race this weekend following Daniel Ricciardo’s hand injury suffered in a practice session earlier in the week.

It was a solid result for Lawson in his first Grand Prix, finishing ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda (16th). The result matched Ricciardo’s best finish in his two races displacing Nyck de Vries behind the wheel in Hungary, while it was a better finish than de Vries achieved in nine of his 10 races before being let go.

While it remains to be seen how long Ricciardo will be sidelined for, the result was a strong foundation for 21-year-old Lawson to build on for next weekend’s event at Monza in Italy as he is unlikely to take part in a race quite so chaotic any time soon.

Lawson had one practice session before qualifying, where he struggled as he was still getting to grips with the car and driving on the intermediate compound tyres for the first time. He was the slowest in qualifying, but got a one-spot bump up the grid as Haas driver Kevin Magnussen started from the pit lane after making a change to his power unit.

Things got off to a bad start for Lawson, partly a result of an early downpour during the opening lap of the race. With every driver aside from Lewis Hamilton starting on soft tyres, most made the call to switch to the intermediates, which are better suited to wet weather.

Lawson was pulled up for an infringement in the pit lane and handed a 10 second time penalty.

But that penalty didn’t end up costing the young Kiwi too much as crashes throughout the race allowed him to gain any ground lost under the safety car or red flag rules.

It was Williams’ Logan Sargeant, Lawson’s teammate at Formula Two team Carlin in 2022, who was the first to have an early end to his day when he went into the barrier on lap 17. A safety car followed, but they were racing again on lap 22, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc retired from the race soon after due to issues with his car.

With 11 laps to go, the heavy rain forecast arrived and caused problems. While most of the drivers changing to intermediate tyres, the rain was worse than expected. It saw three drivers go off the track at the same turn, with Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu the unlucky one to clatter into the wall and have his race ended.

That triggered a red flag – where drivers are forced to go back into the pit lanes and wait for race management to deem the track safe to race on.

After the rain cleared, the race resumed, and Lawson was able to get past Magnussen and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas, while Mercedes’ George Russell ended his race early with a tyre puncture and a penalty saw Tsunoda lose a few places.

Red Bull star Max Verstappen won the race to tie the record of nine straight race wins, with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine) joining him on the podium.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission