Hadjar attempted a bold outside pass into Turn 1 on the final lap, making slight contact with Lawson, but both drivers emerged unscathed.

The drama came on the back of a perfectly executed one-stop strategy by the Kiwi, who stretched his medium tyres across the majority of the race while making early gains at both the start and the Safety Car restart.

Lawson said he respected his teammate’s attempt while praising the overall result for the team.

“Yeah, he was going for a move, and it’s the type of corner that obviously curves in and he’s obviously trying to clear me before the braking and I think just misjudged it,” Lawson told Sky Sports F1.

“But obviously we both came out of it, so it was okay – and more importantly for the team to have two cars seventh and eighth is great today.

“It’s the last step of a race. Honestly, I think there’s no way that the team can expect, or anybody can expect, as much as it’s the ideal thing to do.

“There’s no way that we’re not going to race for a position like that. So I respect that. Obviously we’re lucky that we came out of it, but it’s been a great weekend for the team.”

Hadjar admitted he had overreached on the final lap and wasn’t fully satisfied with his overall performance.

“I pushed it a little too much. But honestly it was very, very fun,” he said.

“He went on the one stop and at the very last lap, I mean, his gearbox, I think you can’t do any better than that. And I tried and I overdid it. Kind of my mistake.

“But yeah, just strategy on the first couple of laps was not good enough.”

Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane praised both drivers and the team’s execution, noting the importance of the result for their championship battle.

“Firstly, congratulations to the whole team today. It’s been a barren spell for us, so to come back here and qualify so well, to then having both cars in the points is a superb effort,” Permane said.

“We didn’t have the pace of Bearman in the Haas today, but we outscore all our rivals in the championship and give ourselves a healthier gap to seventh in the constructors’ championship.

“It was very close between both Liam and Isack; we split the strategies, and they ended up racing each other, which we trusted them to do, and Liam came out on top with an excellently managed one-stop strategy.”

He added the team would take time to recover ahead of the season-ending triple header.

“We have two weeks until Las Vegas where we head into one of the toughest sequences of the year with the final triple header,” Permane said.

“What will be important is preparing well for Vegas but also making sure that everyone gets some time to recover and refresh.”

The result marked a strong weekend for Racing Bulls, extending their advantage over Aston Martin by 10 points in the battle for sixth in the constructors’ championship.

Norris wins in Sao Paulo, Piastri fights back to fifth after penalty