Liam Lawson’s return to Racing Bulls following his demotion from Red Bull didn’t necessarily go as planned, with the Kiwi finishing in 17th after starting in 13th at the F1 Japanese GP.
A risky strategy for Racing Bulls
Lawson and the Racing Bulls team decided to go for a riskier strategy. When asked about whether they could do anything differently, Lawson stated: “It would’ve been very tough from where we were but it definitely didn’t work so obviously we will review going forwards.” Lawson then commented on his teammate Isack Hadjar’s strong performance, with the Frenchman scoring an eighth place finish, his first points in F1 in just his third race. “On the other side Isack [Hadjar] scored points today which is great for him.”
Despite the difficult race, Lawson remained quite optimistic.
“I think from our side as well there’s been good things. Pace has been good, unfortunately not right when it needed to be in quali but I think overall there’s still things to take from it.
A fair assessment for Lawson after F1 Japanese GP
Lawson’s assessment was quite fair, as he was fifth in a heavily disrupted Practice 2 and in Practice 3 he was in 12th, albeit three tenths down on Hadjar. Indeed, the gap in qualifying between the duo in the second section was just over a tenth, showing that Lawson did make progress.
The big talking point coming into the weekend was the swap between Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda. When asked about the situation twice, Lawson gave brief, quick answers. First, he was asked if he felt like he was looking forward to the rest of the season following the demotion, and he gave a simple answer of “Yeah definitely.” Later, when asked if he recognised any issues from the previous race in China compared to Tsunoda, he simply stated “no.”
A gamble that ‘didn’t work’ during the F1 Japanese GP
Later on, he was once again asked about strategy and how he felt with the car, calling the strategy was a “bit of a gamble” which “didn’t work” and in a separate question said the strategy “probably wasn’t planned, but I think a bit of a reaction to where we were and something that makes sense when you’re in that kind of situation.”
The said strategy was a one-stop going from mediums to softs, an aggressive strategy which would require a lot of tyre saving. Lawson did 33 laps on the mediums along with Carlos Sainz, but was unable to progress like the Williams driver.
Despite being ahead of the Williams before their pitstops, by the chequered flag he was over six seconds behind Sainz, who finished 14th and passed Alpine’s Jack Doohan and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg en route to that finish. Lawson was stuck behind the duo for five laps, unable to make an impression like Sainz did.
First points in F1 for Isack 👏
— Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 Team (@visacashapprb) April 6, 2025
A strong drive from LL30 in his first weekend in the VCARB 02 👊#F1 #VCARB #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/OtV66Ql7Bo
