Liam Lawson had a day to forget to start Formula One’s Singapore Grand Prix, after the Kiwi hit the wall and prematurely ended his practice session at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
In the second practice session of the day (FP2), Lawson had shown impressive pace in the opening laps, including sitting second on the leaderboard at one point, but in the end completed just 10 laps under the Singapore lights.
As he looked to improve his best time, the Kiwi ran wide at turn 16, and lost the rear of his Racing Bulls car, which sent his front right wheel into the wall at turn 17, as the damage triggered a red flag.
“I got a little bit too much curb at [turn] 16,” Lawson explained. “It bounced me across to the left, I took too much curb at 17.
“I tried to carry the speed, and right at the last minute lost it and hit the wall. It’s a shame.
“Overall, the car is very fast. We had a difficult FP1, we tried some things, and had to revert. It felt better in FP2. It felt a lot more comfortable, up until [the crash].
“It’s frustrating to end the session in the wall. Up to that point, it was strong. At least [our] short run pace looks quite good.
“We’ll make some more changes overnight, and fine tune it. I’ll learn from what happened today, and try to put it together for tomorrow.”
Losing time in FP2 will see Lawson at a slight disadvantage on Sunday, given the second practice session is representative of how the car and track will perform for qualifying 24 hours later.
Lawson’s best lap of 1m 32.645s was 1.931 seconds off the pace set by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who had the fastest time of the day with 1m 30.714s.
Fresh from back-to-back wins at Monza and in Baku, Max Verstappen was third, 0.143s back from Piastri, while McLaren teammate Lando Norris was fifth, 0.483s behind the leader.
This weekend could see McLaren lift the constructors championship, provided they lead the standings by 303 or more points at the chequered flag on Monday morning.
At the time of his crash, the Kiwi had held a 0.027s advantage over Isack Hadjar, but finished with the 17th fastest time while his teammate was second, and was just 0.132s back from Piastri.
If there’s any consolation for Lawson, though, this weekend marks his return to a Singapore circuit on which he scored his first Formula One points, when he deputised for Daniel Ricciardo in 2023.
On that occasion, he qualified in 10th, before finishing ninth over the course of the 62 laps.
Lawson’s wasn’t the only incident in FP2, either. Mercedes’ George Russell also triggered a red flag after running wide at turn 16, before Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc hit Norris as he left the McLaren garage as the drivers looked to resume after Lawson’s crash.
Leclerc has been noted for an unsafe release, and faces a potential penalty for Monday morning’s grand prix.
Earlier, in FP1, Lawson recorded the 15th best time, admittedly having spent the majority of the session on a single set of hard tyres.
The Kiwi’s best time of 1m 32.461s was 1.345s off the pace set by surprise leader, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who crossed the line in 1m 31.116s.
Leclerc was 0.150s back from Alonso, with Verstappen 0.276s back from the leader. Alonso’s teammate, Lance Stroll, was 18th fastest, in the same car.
Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar was seventh, 0.706s faster than his Kiwi teammate to set the seventh-best time, while Yuki Tsunoda was ninth, 0.601s clear.
The two McLaren cars of Piastri and Norris were fifth and sixth, 0.365s and 0.582s off Alonso respectively.
Lawson’s stints on the hard tyres, were a means of replicating his long run pace for the Grand Prix itself, and saw a best lap time of 1m 32.769s, to be on the fringes of the top 10.
After switching to soft tyres, Lawson bettered his time to 1m 32.461s, before returning to the track on hards again in the session’s last 10 minutes, as the track continued to improve.
Naturally, on the slower tyre, Lawson wasn’t able to improve his time again to finish the session.
Williams’ Alex Albon was the only driver unable to set a time in FP1, after his car’s rear brakes caught fire, and ruled him out of the rest of the session.
Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix begins at 2am on Sunday morning (NZT), before the race itself begins at 1am on Monday.
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.