Liam Lawson says he ‘doesn’t understand’ Azerbaijan Grand Prix stewards took no further action against Racing Bulls team-mate Arvid Lindblad, who spun him around in today’s Formula 1 race.
After Alexander Albon crashed out on lap 30 in Baku, causing a safety car intervention, Lawson and Lindblad lay 12th and 14th ahead of the restart.
When the green flag was waved, Franco Colapinto had a massive lock-up and took both Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris out of the race. Meanwhile, Lindblad braked later than Lawson and Esteban Ocon ahead of him, ending up sandwiched between the two cars, and sent the sister car into a spin.
The stewards deemed the collision to have been caused by “the restricted space available to [Lindblad] and the chain reaction caused by the incident ahead”, hence Lindblad escaping a penalty – but Lawson, albeit speaking before reviewing the clash, didn’t quite agree with that outcome.
“Coming into Turn 1, I had massive boost lag and I didn’t have any power, so Esteban was next to me,” the New Zealander recounted. “I tried to give him space and then I just got hit from my left so hard that it put a hole on the floor, and we couldn’t really fight after that. I don’t really know what happened.
“I’ve always tried to keep clear, and it’s been obviously aggressive at points this year, but… I don’t know, going into Turn 1 there to try and fit through the middle of two cars like that, I don’t think it was ever really going to happen.”
Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls, Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
Asked if the stewards’ decision was good for the team but not so much for him, Lawson commented: “Great for the team. Obviously I’m not going to go and protest my team-mate, but…
“I don’t understand it, because I got hit so hard that it put a hole in my floor. I was just turning for the corner, giving the guy space. From where I’m sitting I don’t understand, but let’s say it’s great for the team.”
Lindblad did apologise to his team-mate as soon as he got the opportunity to. He reiterated this in the media pen while partly blaming the incident on Esteban Ocon moving under braking – which the footage doesn’t corroborate.
“From where we were, me and Esteban, we’d gone about three times on the straight, we’d sort of gone and braked and gone again, so it was complete chaos, the battery wasn’t in a good window because of that,” the rookie said.
“And then everyone braked a little bit too late in Turn 1, and I was going to make the move on Esteban and he moved in the last minute, basically moved under braking, so I had to take avoiding action, which meant I locked the front slightly and I hit Liam.
“I said ‘I’m sorry’ on the radio, but in the end it’s not intentional. If you watch the video back you can see there’s nothing intentional about what I do. The stewards said ‘no further action’, which obviously I’m happy about, but in the end, I don’t know what you want me to do. If we’re all on the limit, we all brake very late, and the guy in front of me moves in the last second… There were many incidents. There was nothing I could do, and it is what it is.”
Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Alex Pantling / LAT Images via Getty Images
Lindblad added that Racing Bulls told him, ‘We can see there’s not much you could have done’, though he did expect to “get a little bit told off” still.
Regardless, there were silver linings for the Faenza-based outfit – Lindblad recovered to seventh, snatching that position away from Ocon by 0.03s, and Alpine obviously failed to score following Colapinto’s blunder. That represents a theoretical 13-point swing in their battle for fifth in the constructors’ championship, with Racing Bulls now 15 points ahead.
“On the positive, we scored points as a team. We got very, very lucky today that Alpine didn’t, honestly,” Lawson admitted. “We didn’t have [their] speed.”
“We take the result, in a sense, because we’ve struggled a lot this weekend, it’s been one of the first times this season we’ve struggled to get out of Q1,” Lindblad concurred. “So to be best of the rest and scoring massive points is absolutely amazing. It’s not been an easy weekend, but points are scored on Sunday.”
Lindblad may not actually score any points this Sunday, but he did get the job done on Saturday after all.
