The Azerbaijan GP reserved high flowing emotions for all drivers involved, and especially for Racing Bulls F1 drivers Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson. As it is often the case around the Baku street circuit, drama, crashes, and teammate rivalries are always right behind the corner. Such crashes can entail deep consequences, especially when teammates have to suffer at the hands of each other.
Another “Well done Baku” moment for the Red Bull racing family
The event which nearly destroyed the Italian outlet’s Saturday afternoon began with former Red Bull F1 driver Alex Albon’s crash. In fact, the Lap 35 race restart brought drama in more than one way, with a crash and mistakes happening at Turn 1.
Lindblad was making his his way up at the restart, aiming for yet another strong points finish, but he came into contact with Lawson, spinning out the New Zealander and quite significantly damaging his VCARB 03 too.
While Lindblad ultimately went on to secure P7, managing to overtake Ocon on the final lap, Lawson dropped out of the top ten, as his car damage effectively hindered the chance of a double points finish for Racing Bulls.
Lindblad was extremely apologetic as he recounted the dynamics of his collision with Lawson after the end of the F1 Azerbaijan GP, admitting that he had no control after the field had reacted to the late restart just ahead.
“It was an absolute mess. As you see on almost all safety car restarts here in Baku, it gets quite chaotic in Turn 1. Honestly, I don’t know what was happening at the front, but it was pretty poorly managed in the sense that the field wasn’t bunched up. From where we were, me and Esteban, we’d gone about three times on the straight, we’d sort of gone and broke and gone again. So, it was complete chaos.”
The point of view of the Brit on what went on at the restart
The Brit went into further details, explaining how he had nowhere to go in the pivotal moment of the race restart.
“The battery wasn’t in a good window because of that. Then, everyone broke a little bit too late in Turn 1. I was going to make the move on Esteban and he moved in at the last minute. Basically, he moved under brake, he just had to take avoiding action, which meant I locked the front slightly and I hit Liam.”
While the rookie Racing Bulls driver is displeased with the crash, he also wanted to acknowledge the overall strong driving performance he was still able to put in, especially after a rather challenging Qualifying session
“So obviously I apologised to him already, I apologised to the team, because it’s not something you want. Because there could have been two of us in the points today, but also at the same time we take it, the result, in a sense because we’ve struggled a lot this weekend. It’s been one of the first times this season we’ve struggled to get out of Q1. So, to be best of the rest and scoring massive points is absolutely amazing. It’s not been an easy weekend, but points are scored on Saturday.”
Ultimately, there was nothing else to do in his opinion
Lindblad was adamant in viewing the collision as a racing incident, in line with the stewards’ assessment calling for no further action.
“I said I’m sorry on the radio, but in the end it’s not intentional. If you watch the video back, you can see there’s nothing intentional about what I do. The stewards said no further action, which I’m happy about. But in the end, I don’t know what you want me to do. If we’re all on the limit, we all brake very late and the guy in front of me moves in the last second, that’s racing. There were many incidents, and there was nothing I could do.”
Lawson’s F1 Azerbaijan GP didn’t end as well as he would have hoped
The New Zealander, returning to Racing Bulls after a stint replacing Isack Hadjar at the main factory team, was disappointed with the final outcome of his Baku day, especially as without the crash points could have definitely been in the cards. Although he understands that it was a chaotic moment overall with the Alpine’s and Norris crashing out in front, Lawson admitted his dismay with what went on.
“I don’t fully know, I need to watch it. Obviously, we were all coming into turn one, I had massive boost lag and I didn’t have any power. So Esteban was next to me and I tried to give him space, and then I just got hit from my left [by Lindblad] so hard that it put a hole in the floor. We couldn’t really fight after that. So I don’t really know what happened. Obviously from where I’m sitting there’s not really space to go through the middle there, so it’s not ideal.”
A sad end to a challenging weekend
While stressing the importance of the very strong P7 finish of his teammate, the move tried by Lindblad appeared as rather too optimistic to Lawson’s eyes.
“I mean, on the positive we scored points as a team. We got very, very lucky today, the outcome didn’t harm us today.But yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always tried to keep it fair and he’s been obviously aggressive at points this year. But I don’t know, going into turn one there to try and fit through the middle of two cars like that, I don’t think it was ever really going to happen.”
While Lawson was glad to receive immediate apologies from Lindblad, the incident still was frustrating for the 24-year-old.
“He came to apologise, and said he locked up and he had nowhere to go. Yeah, I need to watch it, but it’s not ideal.”
