Liam Lawson says gamble didn’t work in F1 Australian GP as he notes about being professional to be adaptable to whatever set-up given to him.
After troubles with Sergio Perez last year, Red Bull hoped for change of fortunes on that side of the garage to start the 2025 F1 season in Australian GP with Lawson. But it wasn’t to be. Fans made fun of ‘Checo Return’ on social media, as the Kiwi faced similar situation as the Mexican did.
The Red Bull driver was knocked out in Q1 itself and the race didn’t go as well despite starting from the pitlane after reverting to a set-up for the rain. It didn’t help him, but made him slower in the grand prix, while teammate Max Verstappen made merry running in the Top 3 fighting for victory.
His race was eventually undone when Red Bull decided to gamble with dry tyres in rain conditions when he crashed out despite trying to save his car multiple times. “We were hoping for a majority wet race,” said Lawson to media. “It basically dried up probably more than we thought, so we struggled a lot with the fronts in the first stint, just overheating.
“Towards the end, it dried up, we went to the slicks and the pace was okay for those few laps. But in the end, it started raining more than we thought. We thought initially it was just going to be in sector three and that we could survive half the track but it rained everywhere and I couldn’t keep it on track. We were on the same page. We wanted to take a risk. So we shared that gamble together.
“I was just apologising for putting the car in the wall. It’s something that I’ve been through plenty of times before in my career. Fortunately, we have just a few days off. But then China is a sprint weekend, so it’s going to be tough in itself, but I’m just excited to go into other weekends,” summed up Lawson, who reckons the changes made to the car didn’t make it difficult for him.
In the sense that, whether the changes happen before the weekend or during the weekend, he is a professional and should adapt to it and perform still. “Potentially, but it’s just something… we’re meant to be professionals, so we’re meant to adapt to it,” said Lawson. “Obviously, there are little things in setup that we don’t really know, and we probably didn’t have enough front wing in the car for the first stint, but, at the same time, we struggled generally for pace.
“So it’s something we’ll reflect on. To be honest, I felt used to it in the test. It wasn’t like I wasn’t adapted or anything like that. It’s just been a tough weekend,” summed up Lawson, as team boss Horner reflected on a difficult weekend for the Kiwi, while noting that his pace was matching the drivers in front at one point and that missing FP3 didn’t help him to stitch the weekend together.
“It was a difficult weekend for him,” said Horner to media. “We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at. We took a risk of leaving him out long because he was outside of the points, and we thought, ‘You know what, roll the dice, maybe it’ll come right,’ but it was exactly the point that it started to rain more.
“So it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin. I think the one flash of light that he can take out of it is that, on the dry tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the Grand Prix, a 1m22.9s. Max did a 1m23.0s, Lando a 1m22.1s. So, if there was one positive we can take that, it’s that his pace in the dry was not too bad.
“The problem is, having missed FP3, you’re on the back foot, and then the pressure builds. He grabbed a brake on the second set of tyres and then, on the third set of tyres, he was half a second up and then another mistake there. So I think next weekend will be tough because it’s a Sprint race at a track that he’s not been to before. But, yeah, he’s pretty resilient to this. This weekend, it wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of,” summed up Horner.
Here’s Red Bull, McLaren pair on Australian GP
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out
