The team arrived at Spa-Francorchamps with several new components but was unable to complete the necessary chassis modification on both cars in the short turnaround following the British Grand Prix.
That left team principal Alan Permane facing the decision of whether Lawson or Lindblad would receive the update in Belgium, with the other car scheduled to be modified ahead of the following round in Hungary.
“It’s not so easy and honestly, we don’t like bringing updates for just one car,” Permane said.
“It was impossible for us to do it to two cars. It’s a chassis modification – we had to shrink the roll hoop and we just couldn’t do that in time between Silverstone and here on both cars.”
Rather than simply selecting one driver, Racing Bulls allowed Lawson and Lindblad to compete for the upgrade during qualifying at Silverstone.
Permane first raised the situation with the pair during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, shortly after Racing Bulls had enjoyed a strong qualifying performance.
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“What I did is I sat down with both drivers in Austria on Saturday evening,” he said.
“We’d had a very good Qualifying and I thought while everyone’s in a good mood, I’ll give some bad news – we’ve got a good update coming but we can only do one car for Spa, and the next car will be done for the race after in Budapest.
“I first suggested the very simple option, which is fair – we upgrade no cars for Spa, and then both of them for Budapest.
“Of course, they looked at me like I was crazy, and I wouldn’t have ever done that. We didn’t really seriously consider that.
“The next thing I said is we can flip a coin, or make it a little bit of fun and say whoever qualifies in front in Silverstone gets the upgrade, and they both signed up for that and that’s what we did.”
Both Racing Bulls drivers reached the final phase of qualifying at the British Grand Prix, leaving the contest to be decided by just one position.
Lindblad continued to improve during Q3 and secured ninth on the grid, while Lawson was unable to better his final lap and qualified 10th.
That result earned Lindblad the updated car for Spa, with the rookie running the revised cooling package while Lawson remained with the previous specification.
The wider upgrade also includes changes to the rear wing and front brake drum as Racing Bulls looks to build on the improvement delivered by its redesigned floor in Canada.
Since introducing that package in Montreal, the team has emerged as a consistent presence near the front of the midfield and arrived in Belgium on a run of four consecutive double points finishes.
While Lindblad won the qualifying contest on this occasion, Permane confirmed Lawson would receive priority should Racing Bulls encounter the same situation again later in the season.
“I think what we’ll do if it happens again later in the season, and it may happen – we’ve got another big thing coming at some point – it’ll go to Liam, so we won’t do that again,” he said.
“He’ll automatically get it next time. We tried to put a bit of fun into it rather than just allocating it to someone.”
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