Eyes forward to Hungarian Grand Prix for Liam Lawson after missing Racing Bulls upgrade
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
A quick turnaround to this week’s Hungarian Grand Prix is just what Liam Lawson needs.
When it comes to reviewing his Belgian Grand Prix performance at Spa-Francorchamps, the Racing Bulls driver would do well to take on board Sir Steve Hansen’s famous advice after an error-ridden All Blacks match in 2009.
“Flush the dunny and move on.”
It seems Lawson has already adopted that mentality. After an encouraging start when passing Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and teammate Arvid Lindblad on lap one, his race quickly soured. Deployment issues plagued his car, sapping it of pace and leaving him to finish 12th, outside the points for the first time since Miami back in early May.
“Definitely excited to get out of here and over there,” Lawson said, looking ahead to the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Lawson came into the Belgian weekend already on the back foot. Racing Bulls only had enough capacity to install its latest upgrades on one car. The team made the call to back the fastest qualifier from the British Grand Prix the previous week and with Lindblad out-qualifying the Kiwi at Silverstone, the teenager rookie got the new package and he was predictably quicker than Lawson all weekend, which hasn’t previously been the case.
On Monday morning (NZT) at the Hungaroring, Lawson will finally run the same upgrades Lindblad got in Belgium.
“It’s positive, at least one car is very, very quick so hopefully that translates to us next week,” Lawson said after Lindblad was ninth in Belgium.
“We were way too slow all race, and it was apparent pretty quickly as well,” he said.
In his debrief with race engineer Alexandre Iliopoulos, Lawson explained that he was losing ground on the straights every time he fought another car, with rivals able to overtake him with ease.
“There was something not right; we will review exactly what happened,” Iliopoulos said.
Lawson’s deployment problems appeared after the first safety car, triggered when George Russell’s race ended after contact with Lewis Hamilton. At that point, Lawson was sixth, but he soon slid down the order.
“What am I supposed to do? I have no energy to fight this,” Lawson lamented as cars streamed past. “It’s not charging when I’m lifting,” he said over his team radio.
Late in the race, when running 10th, Lawson was easily passed by Alpine’s Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly.
“He’s quicker (Gasly) than me down the whole straight. I’m actually not sure what else to do,” a frustrated Lawson told his team.
Without the upgrades Lindblad enjoyed, scoring points at Spa was always going to be a tough ask even without the deployment issues with his power unit.
“It’s frustrating but honestly, after qualifying yesterday I knew we weren’t as quick as we needed to be,” Lawson said. “Just fighting a losing battle through the race.”