{"id":87084,"date":"2025-05-09T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T10:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/87084\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T10:12:11","slug":"has-lawsons-racing-bulls-f1-return-been-as-bad-as-it-seems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/87084\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Lawson’s Racing Bulls F1 return been as bad as it seems?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPretty shocking.\u201d That\u2019s how Liam Lawson<\/a> assesses his results, four grands prix into his newest stint as a Racing Bulls driver, following his demotion from Red Bull.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no points,\u201d Lawson said matter-of-factly after another forgettable race in Miami. \u201cObviously Formula 1 is a lot of variables and to put a full race together could be quite tough. The speed’s been there for most of it, just unfortunately it hasn’t worked out for us so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, public opinion considers Isack Hadjar<\/a> to be the most impressive of the Racing Bulls drivers in 2025. The French rookie has consistently fought for points so far, and he has outqualified Lawson 4-1 (sprint qualifying included) \u2013 but the New Zealander was twice hindered by technical issues, with his DRS and battery causing problems in Bahrain and Miami respectively.<\/p>\n

Statistics can be turned around depending on the point of view, and one could argue that over the two regular (i.e. non-sprint) qualifying sessions where Lawson was trouble-free, he actually has a 0.048s advantage on Hadjar.<\/p>\n

Still, this is a problem. Hadjar\u2019s average grid position (for grand prix races) is 11, while Lawson\u2019s is 14.5. This significantly hinders his chances to score points on Sundays.<\/p>\n

The uneventful Japanese Grand Prix was tough for Lawson, who dropped from 13th to 14th at the start and eventually took the checkered flag in 17th \u2013 undercut by Jack Doohan<\/a> and Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>, and overtaken by Carlos Sainz<\/a>. Meanwhile, Hadjar achieved a brilliant eighth-place finish.<\/p>\n

\"Liam <\/p>\n

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team, Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

Pace was better in Bahrain, but Lawson picked up two penalties for contact with Lance Stroll<\/a> and Hulkenberg, which dropped him from a potential 13th position \u2013 right ahead of Hadjar \u2013 to 16th.<\/p>\n

Come Saudi, Lawson led Hadjar on the grid for the first time, but lost out in the chaos of the first lap; he had a few overtakes to make for his medium\/hard strategy to work, but a 10-second penalty for overtaking Jack Doohan off the track at Turn 2 dropped him from 11th to 12th, while Hadjar scored a point.<\/p>\n

Finally, in Miami, a racing incident \u2013 with Doohan again \u2013 at the start saw Lawson spin, damaging his Racing Bulls and his chances of scoring points, with the New Zealander describing his crippled car as \u201cpretty horrendous\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lawson was jaded after another tough race, but the picture arguably looks worse than his actual performance has been; while there is little representative data to consider so far, everything seems to point to a relatively balanced performance level compared to Hadjar.<\/p>\n

\u201cComfort-wise I feel really good in the car,\u201d Lawson assessed. \u201cSpeed’s been pretty good most places, just unfortunately no results to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the way forward? \u201cReset, like always. That’s how we have to be in the sport. Keep working forward, keep improving things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think anything really changes. I think our approach to the weekend’s been really, really good. As I said, the car was fast this weekend, so it’ll click eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

All Lawson needs may be to stay away from collisions and penalties.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

Ben Vinel\n<\/p>\n

Formula 1\n<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson\n<\/p>\n

RB\n<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPretty shocking.\u201d That\u2019s how Liam Lawson assesses his results, four grands prix into his newest stint as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,228,24496,24497,4856,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-87084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-liam-lawson","12":"tag-miami-gp","13":"tag-miami-international-autodrome","14":"tag-rb","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114477345176404534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}