Racing Bulls drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad gave mixed verdicts on the Canadian Grand Prix, as both suffered contrasting fortunes last weekend.
Lawson’s weekend began on the back foot, as the New Zealander completed only a handful of laps in the sole Free Practice session due to a hydraulic issue which then also forced him to sit out Sprint Qualifying.
Having qualified P12 for Sunday’s 68-lap Grand Prix, Lawson made steady progress and survived late pressure from Pierre Gasly’s Alpine to finish P7 – matching his best result of the season, as Racing Bulls improved to P6 in the Teams’ standings.
“We never really have that much speed during the race, especially compared to Qualifying, so we have to review it but we survived and brought the car home in P7 which is great,” said Lawson.
“It was very close [with Gasly] but happy to obviously come home seventh. Towards the end of the race we were struggling a little bit more and honestly they [Alpine] had really good race pace. Franco [Colapinto] pulled away from me, so it was a hard fight.”
In contrast, Lindblad’s weekend unravelled on Sunday after an encouraging earlier performance on his first time racing at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit.
The 18-year-old claimed a point for finishing P8 in Saturday’s Sprint and qualified P9 for the main event, only to suffer an issue which left him unable to change gear on the grid at the start.
“We had an issue with the clutch at the start of the formation lap which meant I wasn’t able to take part in the race,” said Lindblad afterwards.
“I was really excited to get out there and drive in the mixed conditions, so not getting the chance is obviously disappointing.
“It’s such a shame because up until that point, the weekend had been really positive.
“The team worked flawlessly all weekend and the upgrades we brought were performing really well, so it’s frustrating not to come away with the result we felt we deserved.”
