The Racing Bulls driver finished eighth in Saturday’s sprint, having started ninth, but was placed under investigation after moving across to defend from Hadjar into Stowe on the penultimate lap.
The stewards looked into whether Lawson had made an abnormal change of direction, but ultimately chose not to hand him a time penalty, allowing him to keep the final point from the sprint.
Lawson admitted the defence had been firm, but said he had not yet started braking when he moved to cover the Red Bull.
“It was probably quite aggressive to be fair,” Lawson told Sky Sports after the sprint race.
“I hadn’t started braking yet because it was such a long entry straight into the corner. So we were still full throttle and I was trying to defend.
“But maybe it was aggressive. I don’t know. We’ll see.
“But it was a good race. I think we struggled towards the end. We didn’t really expect to have to pace to fight Red Bull anyway today, but hopefully we can keep that going.”
Hadjar closed rapidly on Lawson in the final laps after recovering from a poor start that dropped him from eighth to 12th, but backed his former Racing Bulls teammate when the incident went before the stewards.
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Speaking to Sky Sports after the sprint, the Frenchman said the move was aggressive, but made clear he did not want Lawson penalised for the defence.
“I’m not going to chase that final point so hard,” Hadjar said.
“But I hope the decision they take is sensitive, because that was very aggressive in the car.”
The stewards handed Lawson a warning, noting that while the move was late and abrupt, Hadjar had been left enough room and no contact was made.
Hadjar also told the stewards the incident did not deserve a penalty, with the different energy levels between the two cars making the closing speed harder to judge.
Lawson crossed the line 0.7s ahead of Hadjar to secure eighth, having earlier passed the fast-starting Pierre Gasly to move into the points.
The result capped another strong sprint outing for the New Zealander, who said eighth was realistically the maximum result available given the pace of the leading teams.
“Pretty happy. Honestly it’s really the best we could have done,” Lawson said.
“We had a bad start. I don’t even remember passing Isaac at the start, but I must have got him somewhere because obviously he came back through towards the end of the race.
“It was a good fight in the end. The car is working well this weekend.
“We don’t realistically have the speed to fight the top guys. But if we can do something similar tomorrow, that’d be great.”
Lawson then backed up his sprint result by reaching Q3 in grand prix qualifying, marking his fourth consecutive top-10 qualifying result and fifth when factoring in sprint qualifying on Saturday.
He qualified 10th for Sunday’s race, one place behind teammate Arvid Lindblad, who outqualified Lawson for the first time since Canada.
Despite reaching the final part of qualifying again, Lawson said he was confused by how Racing Bulls lost pace through the session after a strong start to qualifying which saw him finish Q1 in second place.
“Yeah it’s good to go through. But to be honest, I have no idea,” Lawson said.
“I literally didn’t improve from Q1. I went slower in every single session after Q1.
“So luckily the car was fast enough to go through. But compared to ourselves, we just went slower every session. So I don’t really know.
“We completely lost the balance. We’ll try and fix it obviously. I mean the race car today was okay. So hopefully it’s good tomorrow.”
Asked whether he believed Racing Bulls had the pace to fight for points again in the grand prix, Lawson said the car had shown enough across Saturday to be in the mix.
“I think so. There’s also quick guys behind. But I think we have a good enough car to fight for points.”
If Lawson finishes in the points, it will extend his current grand prix points scoring streak to five races.
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