Liam Lawson’s Red Bull Racing debut proved a difficult weekend for the Kiwi, ending in the wall as he crashed out of the Australian Grand Prix.

Making his full-time F1 debut as a Red Bull driver, Lawson was knocked out in Q1 in Melbourne after mistakes on his flying laps – and his race day also proved a gruelling affair.

Liam Lawson downplays extent of wing changes

After a solid if unspectacular Friday practice day at Albert Park, Lawson’s weekend began to derail on Saturday morning as he encountered a power unit issue which prevented him from any proper running in final practice.

This loss of momentum carried through to qualifying, with Lawson making mistakes during Q1 – a lurid moment in the final sector putting an end to his qualifying session and dooming him to an 18th place grid slot.

Red Bull opted to make setup changes with a revised rear wing/beam wing configuration on his car, bidding to add downforce to the RB21 for what was expected to be a wet race, with the breach of parc fermé regulations ensuring a pitlane start for the Kiwi.

But the added downforce on his car ended up proving something of a hurdle in itself during the race, with drying conditions not playing to the strengths of the setup as he toiled away towards the back of the field, unable to make significant progress.

A gamble to stay on dry tyres in the increasingly damp conditions towards race end briefly looked set to yield rewards – particularly as Lawson pulled off a daring overtake around the outside of Lando Norris following the McLaren’s stop for intermediates – but ended in naught as he spun out moments later, clobbering the barrier with his rear wing.

“Yeah, I was hoping for a sort of majority wet race,” he told media after returning to the pits, explaining the setup choice.

“It basically dried up probably more than we thought. We struggled a lot with the fronts in the first stint, just overheating.

“Towards the end, it dried up, we went slick and, honestly, the pace on the slick was okay for those few laps but, in the end, it started raining more than we thought.

“We thought initially that it was just going to be Sector 3 and that we could survive half the track, but it just rained everywhere, and then I couldn’t keep it on track.”

Given the last-minute changes to the car, at a track he lacked familiarity with, for a first race in a new car, were the changes an ask too far for the rookie?

“Potentially, but it’s just something… we’re meant to be professionals, so we’re meant to adapt to it,” Lawson said.

“Obviously, there are little things in setup that we don’t really know, and we probably didn’t have enough front wing in the car for the first stint, but, at the same time, we struggled generally for pace. So it’s something I’ll reflect on.”

Asked whether the call to stay out on slicks – the decision which ended up costing him dearly – was one he made himself, or from the pitwall, Lawson explained that it had been a mutual decision as a “shared gamble”, and revealed he had apologised to the team for putting the car in the wall.

Lawson’s mental resilience is something that Red Bull took onboard when making their driver choice for this year, and the Kiwi said he’s eager to get on with the next round as he admitted there’s “not much” by way of positives to take from his Red Bull debut.

“Honestly, I’m just looking forward to going to China and resetting,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s something that I’ve been through plenty of times before in my career and, fortunately, we have just a few days off.

“China is a Sprint weekend, so it’s gonna be tough in itself. But, yeah, I’m just excited to go into another weekend.”

Christian Horner: Difficult to blame Liam Lawson for race-ending spin

Horner had grown accustomed to explaining poor races from the second Red Bull driver after last year’s annus horribilis from Sergio Perez, but said he had seen enough from Lawson to take positives from his first weekend for the Milton Keynes-based squad.

“It was a difficult weekend for him,” Horner said.

“We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on the car. It’s a very hard track to overtake at. We took a risk of leaving him out because he was outside of the points, and we thought, ‘You know what, roll the dice, maybe it’ll come right,’ but it was exactly the point that it started to rain more. So it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin.

“I think the one flash of light that he can take out of it is that, on the dry tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the Grand Prix, a 1:22.9. Max did a 1:23.0, Lando a 1:22.1.

“So, if there was one positive we can take that, it’s that his pace in the dry was not too bad.

“The problem is, having missed FP3, you’re on the back foot, and then the pressure builds. He grabbed a brake on the second set of tyres and then, on the third set of tyres, he was half a second up and then another mistake there.

“So I think next weekend will be tough because it’s a Sprint race at a track that he’s not been to before. But, yeah, he’s pretty resilient to this. This weekend, it wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”

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