A difficult weekend for Lawson at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix was capped off by a strategy gamble that backfired.
Lawson crashed out in the latter stages of Sunday’s race in Albert Park, skidding into the wall at Turn 2 much as Isack Hadjar had done on the warmup lap.
The New Zealander had a slow start to the weekend on Friday before striking trouble in final practice with an apparent power unit issue.
That lack of running ramped up the pressure in Qualifying, and the 22-year-old cracked.
His mistakes eliminated him from Qualifying 1 with the 18th-best time.
With changeable weather and little to lose, Red Bull made the call to change the rear wing on Lawson’s car ahead of the race, forcing him to start from the pit lane.
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“The problem is, having missed P3, you’re on the back foot and then the pressure builds,” Horner explained.
“He grabbed the brake on the second set of tyres, and then the third set of tyres, he was half a second up and then another mistake there.”
While the early stages of Lawson’s race in Australia were dictated by poor track position, a result of his qualifying woes, the changeable weather afforded strategic possibilities.
That included a gamble on tyres that, for a time, had him running well inside the top 10 but ultimately proved his demise.
“We’re on the same page. We wanted to take a risk, so we shared that gamble together,” Lawson said of the call to remain on slick tyres on a wet track.
That ultimately led to a slide exiting Turn 1, the car skating into the tyre barrier and retirement with 12 laps remaining while running seventh and ahead of third-place finisher George Russell.
“It was a difficult weekend for him,” Horner conceded of Lawson’s Australian GP.
“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 at exactly the point that it started to rain more, so it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin.
“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 22.9 versus Max’s 23.0, Lando 22.1.
“If there was one positive we can take that his pace actually on the drivers was not too bad.
“He’s pretty resilient,” Horner added.
“[Melbourne] wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”
It was a performance that saw Lawson the subject of an intense backlash on social media as fans questioned his promotion ahead of Yuki Tsunoda – and the merit of axing Sergio Perez.
It was a tough start to the season, one that offered few positives.
“Not much,” Lawson said when asked if there was anything he could take from the weekend.
“Honestly, I’m just looking forward to going to China and resetting,
“It’s something that I’ve been through plenty of times before and in my career,” he added of the need to bounce back.
“Fortunately, we have just a few days off.
“China’s a Sprint weekend, so it’s going to be tough in itself, but I’m just excited to go into another weekend.”
Having never driven at the Shanghai International Circuit before, it promises to be an all-new challenge for Lawson.
Bring a Sprint weekend, he’ll have just an hour of practice before the meaningful running begins.
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