Before that, Lawson had effectively worked his way up into 13th position on the track, and appeared to have been coming to terms with Red Bull’s unforgiving RB21 car, after struggling for most of the race weekend. Ultimately, though, Red Bull’s gamble to keep him out on a wet track cost Lawson dearly.
“We took a chance, hoping at least half the track would stay dry,” Lawson said post-race.
“We hoped at least half the track would stay dry. We knew sector three was bad, but we thought sector one would stay drier, so we carried on.
“Unfortunately, it was bucketing down with rain. I backed out of pushing at that point, because it was so wet. I was just trying to stay on track.
“We were really struggling to be honest, I had a lot of tyre issues with the front early in the race.
“It’s just been a tough weekend.”
Now, though, Lawson and Red Bull will have to wait until Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix to see where the Kiwi is truly at in his team’s quest to regain the constructors’ championship.
The scale of the task in the wet conditions was made clear before the race even started, when Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar spun at turn two on the formation lap, and destroyed his rear wing to cut the grid to 19 drivers.
That number dropped to 17 before the end of the first lap, as the pair of Alpine’s Jack Doohan and Williams’ Carlos Sainz - who won the same race for Ferrari last year - both spun and were forced to retire with damage to their cars.
With the safety car out, though, Lawson pitted for a fresh set of intermediate tyres, and held his position in 16th before the race finally resumed in full on the seventh lap.
As the track continued to dry, Lawson closed the gap on Esteban Ocon’s Haas to under 1.3 seconds, only for rain to return on lap 16. At the front of the grid, Lawson’s struggles with the RB21 were mirrored by Verstappen, who went too far at turn 10 and was overtaken by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
On lap 20, Lawson finally got around Ocon and up into 15th, pulling off an overtake at the same turn nine that had troubled the drivers all weekend. But as Lawson slowly began to close the gap on the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto in 14th, the Kiwi was blue flagged, and overtaken by Norris, Piastri and Verstappen.
And when Fernando Alonso spun on lap 34 and triggered a yellow flag and safety car, Lawson moved up to 14th, and was able to pit for slick tyres, as Red Bull put both cars onto a set of fresh mediums as McLaren went for slower hards.
When the safety car ended on lap 42, and Lawson resumed less than two seconds back from Bortoleto, the Kiwi had effectively moved up one place to 13th, as the Sauber driver was penalised for an unsafe release.
But with 12 laps to go, disaster struck. The call to move to slick tyres backfired on the field, as Piastri spun at the final turn on lap 45, and sent the Melburnian to the back of the pack, and the rest of the grid back to the pits to return to intermediates.
It was a sign of what was to come, as Piastri’s spin caused a chain reaction that saw multiple drivers lose control, and completely alter the race order.
Red Bull’s decision to prioritise Verstappen - while understandable - accounted for Lawson, as the medium tyres were not equipped to deal with the wet conditions, as Bortoleto also found the wall.
With six laps to go at the time the safety car ended, and further salt was rubbed into Lawson’s wounds by the sun coming out for the final laps, as Norris started 2025 the way he finished 2024 - on top of the podium.
Alex Powell is an online sports editor for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016, and previously worked for both Newshub and 1News.
