Liam Lawson arrives at the Spanish Grand Prix of Formula 1 with renewed confidence, for his third consecutive participation this season with Red Bull Racing. The New Zealander highlighted the performance evolution seen by the team in Monza, before facing the Madrid circuit for the first time.
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Lawson will continue replacing Isack Hadjar, who is recovering from a wrist fracture. Since Madring will host F1 for the first time, the driver believes that FP1 will be crucial to understand how Red Bull will position itself against the competitors.
“Madrid will be an interesting weekend for everyone,” said Lawson. The driver explained that, so far, he has only had contact with the track through the simulator and that it will be necessary to wait for the start of activities to get a more accurate reading.
“We have only driven on this circuit in the simulator so far, so the first free practice will tell us a lot about where we really are,” he said. Lawson also drew attention to a specific characteristic of the track: “It is a unique circuit and the banked corner should make things interesting,” he added.
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The positive expectation comes despite the difficult weekend experienced in Monza. A grid penalty for an engine change made Lawson start from the back of the pack, limiting his recovery to 14th position, his worst result of the year.
Even so, the New Zealander assessed that Red Bull managed to find performance throughout the event, something he considers important for the next stage: “Monza was a challenging weekend from the start, with the engine change putting us at a disadvantage, so it was difficult to fully show what we were capable of. The positive point is that we found a good pace as the weekend progressed, which gives us confidence to arrive in Madrid,” Lawson concluded.
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