Liam Lawson confirmed his reputation as a fast driver who knows how to handle the task, even though it is his first time driving a car on a new circuit.
The New Zealander managed to earn points in the very first race he rode for the Visa RB team this season: Liam took 9th place in the American Grand Prix. At the same time, unlike his partner, he made no mistakes.
Liam Lawson (9th): “It was a good race – to be honest, I didn’t even expect this. The first lap was great, I tried to exploit even the minimal gaps on the track and was able to gain several positions.
Yesterday, working with the car, we took a big step forward and hoped that this would be confirmed in the race. Fortunately that was the case. The car functioned excellently, the behavior fully met our wishes. The hard tires also proved to be quite effective and we were able to maintain a good pace.
After the pit stop the track was clear for me and we were able to drive a longer stretch than planned. I think yesterday’s sprint helped me: I noticed how other riders behaved, and today it really helped me.
The whole team put a lot of effort into getting me ready for the American round as it was my first weekend in the car and I’m very grateful to everyone there.
The track in Mexico City is completely different, so we’ll see what we can do next week.”
Yuki Tsunoda (14th): “The race was difficult and brought only frustration. I started on Medium tires, hoping to limit myself to one pit stop, while the other riders followed different tactical schemes. They started a long first stint on the hard tires before switching to the fresh Medium set.
We must analyze everything to understand whether something could have been better, and also draw lessons so that we can take this experience into account for the future.
Unfortunately I made a mistake in the second half of the race: I lost control of the car in Turn 1 and it spun, which obviously didn’t help either. The moment was very strange, and I’m not even sure what happened there, and we definitely need to analyze it. But the stage in Mexico City is coming up soon and I will try to perform better there.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.