Lawson navigates “tough” Friday as RB faces FP1 setback

Liam Lawson endured a disrupted start to his Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as Racing Bulls battled technical setbacks in FP1, but the Kiwi still showed glimpses of potential across both fast-paced sessions in Jeddah.

Free Practice 1 was a session that struggled to get going for the entire Racing Bulls team as an issue with one of the team’s new upgrades cost the Faenza-based outfit greatly on a circuit that requires experience.

Running an ulterior program to his midfield competitors, Lawson opened FP1 with a subpar lap which left him at the back end of the field.

He worked his way up the order as the laps ticked by, finding himself on the border of the top ten, but after just 12 laps around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the Kiwi returned to his garage and remained there for a prolonged amount of time alongside Isack Hadjar, leaving RB to miss out on around 20 minutes of critical running.

With exactly ten minutes remaining on the clock, RB finally released both drivers out into the cooling Jeddah conditions, with the short timeframe forcing Lawson into overdrive.

Trying to maximise his run down the main straight, dipping a wheel over the white line at the pit entry brought the #30 to the stewards’ attention, with the Kiwi noted for failing to follow the Race Directors’ instructions.

In between practice sessions, Lawson received a reprimand for overstepping the legal boundaries. 

On the timing sheets, however, things were looking up for the Kiwi who slotted into P11 with a soft tyre time of 1:29.907s, trailing his Red Bull replacement by under a tenth.

Lawson finished his FP1 running on the soft compound tyre, however, his initial lap remained his fastest as he headed to the grid to complete his first practice start of the weekend.

“FP1 was busy, but it was nice to drive an F1 car here as it’s the first time I’ve done that,” Lawson said.

“The track lives up to the hype, it was very fast, very cool. 

“We had a productive day and tried a lot of different things. 

“Tyres wise, we’ll try and learn what we can before tomorrow.” 

RB’s Racing Director Alan Permane explained the complications that the team battled with during FP1, faulting an issue with a new rear wing which made sense as the RB mechanics spent the allotted time at the rear of the VCARB 02.  

“Quite a tough day today where we started off on the back foot,” Permane said. 

“We have a new rear wing for this event, and we saw a small issue with it after the first run of FP1. 

“That caused us to revert to an earlier specification and we lost some running time doing this. 

“At a track like this, mileage is important with the high speed and walls to think about, the drivers need time to be able to push to the limit.”

Running an opposing tyre program to the rest of the field during FP2, Lawson started the representative session on the medium compound tyre, completing five laps before returning to the pitlane.

The Kiwi rejoined the session ten minutes later as the first driver to transition to the soft compound tyre, jumping from P17 to P4 with a time of 1:29.522s.

When the rest of the field made the switch, RB called Lawson back into the pitlane, only releasing him with 25 minutes on the clock and with a fresh set of soft tyres at the ready.  

Sitting in P14, the RB driver didn’t improve on his lap time despite the fresh rubber beneath him, remaining 1.2 seconds off the pace before he switched back to the medium compound.

The Kiwi managed to complete three laps on the yellow-marked compound before yellow flags in Sector 3 brought the session to a close, still allowing the field to complete their practice starts on the grid, however, only permitting one out-lap.

“It’s hard to tell how we’re doing pace-wise as we still need to find some time relative to some of our competitors in the midfield,” Lawson said.

“Alpine and Williams were strong today, so we need to make a step, but that’s what we’re working on hard now.”

The Racing Bulls driver will have one more hour of practice before taking on a tight Qualifying session on Sunday morning, with FP3 kicking off at 23:30 AEST.

Image: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool.

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