Lawson eighth at F1 Barcelona Grand Prix
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
New Zealand driver Liam Lawson has been promoted to an eighth place at Formula One's Barcelona-Catalunya after a post-race penalty for Alpine driver Franco Colapinto
Retirements late in the race had Lawson claim ninth place after earlier looking like he'd finish 11th in a race where over half a dozen cars failed to finish..
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To continue his good fortune Lawson, 24 later received an update that Colapinto had failed to slow for a yellow flag which dropped him back from eighth to 10th, meaning the Racing Bulls driver doubled his championship points from two to four.
Sitting in line for points a late virtual safety car on lap 41 of 66 meant Alpine’s Pierre Gasly took a free pit stop, to put Lawson and his Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad at a disadvantage.
However with less than five laps remaining, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc suffered engine and steering failures respectively, seeing Lawson climb back inside the top 10, where he’d finish.
“It’s great we finished in the points, but if the top guys had finished, we wouldn’t have,” said Lawson in the post-race media confernce.
“We got knocked out by the Alpine’s, they were quicker than us. It’s something for us to review. We had a good car yesterday, and struggled more today.”
Lawson is 10th in the driver standings on 28 points, six behind Isack Hadjar and 10 ahead of Oliver Bearman.
Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton celebrated an emotional and historic first grand prix victory with Ferrari to end Kimi Antonelli's five-race sequence of success and become, at 41, Formula One's oldest winner since Australian Jack Brabham in 1970.
In second was Mercedes George Russell followed by Lando Norris (McLaren) and Max Verstappen fourth.
