Kiwi Formula 2 driver Liam Lawson has improved his position in the season standings, backing up a sprint race with a good points haul from the feature race at the French Grand Prix.
Heading into the event in sixth place on the overall standings, Lawson walked away from the eventat Circuit Paul Ricard adding 19 points to his total, taking his count for the season to 79 after nine of 14 stops on the calendar.
It's been a rollercoaster of a season for the Red Bull junior. The 20-year-old made a flying start to his campaign before a torrid run in which he picked up just 10 points across 10 races – with eight of those 10 points coming in the lower scoring sprint races and just two points from five feature races in that span. He was force to retire from three of those five feature races.
However, Lawson has managed to bag points in each of the last three features, adding a sixth-placed finish in France to a 10th in Austria a fortnight ago and podium finish in England the week prior.
Heading into the event, Lawson was hopeful of his misfortunes being behind him, but admitted there were still some issues he was trying to resolve.
"We've always had a really strong car, but we had a lot of stuff happen earlier in the year – we got really unlucky with things and feature races I hadn't finished," Lawson told fiaformula2.com. "Up until Silverstone, I hadn't finished a feature race in the points properly since the first round so from my side it was a really tough start to the year.
The weekend started in terrific form for Lawson, who impressed with his overtakes of Felipe Drugovich, Jehan Daruvala and fellow Kiwi Marcus Armstrong to go on to win the sprint race. He continued that form with a solid drive in the feature race, improving from starting ninth on the grid to finish in sixth.
Lawson didn't waste any time in trying to improve his position, moving up two places on the opening lap. He managed to maintain his place in a bid for a decent haul of points, but it wasn't until the 20th lap that he was able to improve again from seventh in the field – being handed a spot when Amaury Cordeel went into the pit lane. Lawson ended up comfortably in sixth place – three seconds behind fifth but eight seconds ahead of seventh.
But while Lawson's fortunes appear to be trending in the right direction, the same can't be said for Armstrong.
Marcus Armstrong has been forced to retire without completing a single lap in the last two feature races. Photo / Getty Images
After twice being forced off the track – once by his Hitech GP teammate Jiri Vips – and receiving a five-second time penalty after being judged to have caused a collision, Armstrong was unable to capitalise on a great starting position in the sprint race.
Things only got worse for the Kiwi driver in the feature race as, for the second straight event, he was out of the race without completing a single lap - being sent into a spin after contact with David Beckmann at turn 13.
Without taking any points from the weekend, Armstrong dropped to 10th in the overall standings on 69 points. Brazilian driver Drugovich remains the man to catch with 173 points.
