Formula 1: What Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls need to do at Imola to turn season around - Alex Powell

THREE KEY FACTS

• Liam Lawson is one of five drivers yet to score a point in this year’s Formula One season
• The Kiwi was forced to retire during last week’s Miami Grand Prix
• The Formula One season resumes in Imola, Italy, later this month

While little has gone to plan for Liam Lawson in 2025, not all is lost.

Now back at Racing Bulls, the sister side of former world champions Red Bull, the Kiwi has shown flashes of his former self.

However, after being forced to retire with damage in Miami last week, Lawson is in need of a result or two to go his way.

But with a series of races – three in three weeks – on tracks that he’s driven on before, there is reason to be optimistic.

Ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, in Italy, on 19 May, here’s what Lawson has to do to get his campaign back on track.

Be patient

After his two-race demotion from Red Bull, Lawson will naturally want to prove a point to the likes of Christian Horner and Dr Helmut Marko – the team’s decision makers.

However, there is also a sense that he’s trying too hard to force results. Over the past three races, he’s been penalised four times.

In Bahrain, Lawson was called for making contact with Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg, both going for overtakes. In Saudi Arabia, he was harshly pinged for gaining an advantage on Jack Doohan.

Then, in Miami, Lawson was judged to have been at fault for an incident with Fernando Alonso that forced the former world champion to retire from the sprint race.

That penalty cost Lawson not only his best result of the season, but the best result of his career, after looking to have managed seventh.

All of the above, though, show that Lawson is maybe pushing too hard for results.

It’s even seen Lawson accrue six penalty points towards his Formula One super license, and risk a ban if that number increases to 12 by the end of 2025.

So far, his best displays in Formula One have all come by being patient, biding his time, and then seizing his chance when it comes. Think back to Austin last year as the best example of that, where he started 19th and used a superior pit strategy to finish ninth.

If he can stay within himself and not try to do too much in the middle of the pack, there’s no reason why Lawson can’t pull off a similar result at Imola.

Liam Lawson must stay patient in this weekend's formula one race at Imola, Italy. Photo / Red Pool Content Pool

Qualify strong

Before he returned to Formula One late last year, qualifying was one of Lawson’s strongest suits.

Being quick over a single lap is a very different skill to doing the same over a race distance, and not all drivers can do both.

Since he’s come back into Formula One, Lawson hasn’t quite been able to show his true wares as a strong qualifier.

Only once, in Saudi Arabia, has Lawson qualified ahead of his teammate – and that was only the second time in his career he’d been able to do that.

Given not only Imola, but Monaco and Spain to follow, are going to be difficult to overtake on, starting as high up the grid as possible is imperative if Lawson’s going to have any chance of breaking his duck in 2025.

Sort Racing Bulls’ reliability out

It’s not unrealistic to say most of the misfortune in Lawson’s season has been beyond his control.

In Melbourne, a pneumatic issue robbed him of vital practice time before qualifying. In Bahrain, a fault with his drag reduction system cost him grid positions for the Grand Prix.

Then, last week in Miami, a problem with his power unit in qualifying also meant missing out on the top 10, and left him closer to the back of the grid on the first lap, where he was taken out by Jack Doohan on the first lap.

Liam Lawson (left) was hit by Alpine's driver Jack Doohan at the Miami Grand Prix. Photo / AFP

Meanwhile, in the other Racing Bulls garage, teammate Isack Hadjar has largely had the rub of the green, in terms of strategy as well as reliability.

It’s largely out of Lawson’s control, but if everything can come together on and off track, Racing Bulls have already shown this year that their car can get results.

Bank on experience

It’s hard to work out just how much previous experience on the current Formula One circuits is worth.

But, if it is a tangible factor in success, Lawson has raced on the upcoming Imola, Monaco and Barcelona in Formula Two and Formula Three.

It’s not a coincidence that Lawson’s two best drives of the year – so far – came in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, races he’d won in Formula Two.

He hasn’t quite had the same success at Imola, with an eighth and retirement in 2022, but did manage to win at Monaco in 2021 – even if it was stripped for his car not conforming to technical regulations.

Meanwhile, his struggles have come in Melbourne, Shanghai and Miami – tracks he’d never raced on.

Whether it means anything or not, past experience should give Lawson and Racing Bulls reason to target these next three race weekends.

Engineering synergy

When Lawson moved to Racing Bulls at the start of this year, Hadjar didn’t just take the spot he vacated, he took the man who’d been a player in his successes.

Lawson’s 11 races with AlphaTauri and Racing Bulls in 2023 and 2024 came with Pierre Hamelin as his race engineer, tasked with being the conduit between the team and driver.

Hamelin is quietly one of the best in the business, notably for the work with Pierre Gasly during his time at Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri.

Now, though, Lawson is working alongside Ernesto Desiderio, the former race engineer of Yuki Tsunoda. Desiderio himself is new to Racing Bulls, but boasts a healthy CV after working with Romain Grosjean at Haas.

Naturally, as it did with Hamelin, it’ll take time for the pair to come to an understanding with each other.

When that happens, though, Lawson will be better equipped to end his slump, starting at Imola.

Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.