Eleventh place for Liam Lawson at the Japanese F1 Grand Prix is not enough for the young Kiwi rookie F1 driver in just his fourth outing. Having gained his first F1 points last weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix, more of the same was the objective and proved somewhat frustrating for a driver who has made a real splash in the F1 paddock since his shock debut at the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
“I’m still trying to score points for the team and prove myself every time I get in the car, and I think I did that today,” said Lawson.
Lawson qualified 11th fastest, missing the top-ten (Q3) qualifying run-off by just 0.043 seconds. Initially Lawson jumped ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda who started the race in ninth, but neither were able to break into a points-scoring top ten position at the end of 53-laps of the Suzuka Circuit in Japan.
“We didn’t have the performance in the long run today and didn’t quite have the speed of the Alpines ahead,” commented Lawson. “The team and I worked hard this weekend to maximise the sessions, and we made steps in each one.”
“Having saved only one medium and one hard tyre set for the race, we knew that with these track temperatures, we would be at a slight disadvantage to those cars around who had two hard compound tyres left,” said Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Engineer). “Equally, we had expected the medium tyres to behave similarly to the hard compound.
“It was always going to be a race about tyres. We started both cars on the soft compound, and after the incidents at the start, both our cars emerged in P9 and P10.
“The stint on the soft tyres was short, and we reacted to Hulkenberg. With good in laps from the drivers and great pitstops, we kept both our cars ahead.
“Our main issue was the pace of the medium compound in the middle stint. We had high degradation, and this was where the damage was done. This will be the main focus of the post-race work, as other teams were able to make it work.
“Our pace on the hard compound at the end was competitive, but by this stage, we had already lost out to the two Alpines, ending up with both cars just outside the points. Although we lost some positions in the race, there are some positive signs from the weekend.
“The package is working as demonstrated by the good qualifying performance and the pace in the race, which has taken a step forward compared to before. We are continuing to develop the car, and we’re so close to being able to score points on merit, so we’ll keep fighting to the end of the season.”
Beating his Scuderia AlphaTauri teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, again, was some compromise for Lawson.
“The fight with Yuki was aggressive, but I think it was a fair race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, and I think neither of us had the pace to make the top 10,” said Lawson.
Filling in for regular AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo who is out with a hand injury may well see Lawson compete in his fifth Grand Prix in two weeks’ time at the Formula One Qatar Airways Grand Prix (6-8 October 2023).
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