Lawson 'tried everything' on his way to career-best fifth as he reflects on ‘pretty intense’ race in Baku

Liam Lawson was left with mixed feelings in the wake of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after failing to convert a P3 grid slot into a maiden podium for Racing Bulls, despite still scoring his career best F1 result with an impressive fifth.

With team mate Isack Hadjar also finishing in the top 10, it proved to be a strong weekend for Racing Bulls who were able to jump above Aston Martin into P6 in the Teams' Championship.

However, for Lawson, fifth was realistically the best he could have hoped for despite securing a superb third-place start on the grid in Saturday's chaotic Qualifying session in Baku. Starting ahead of both Mercedes cars for the Sunday's race, with both proving to be very quick in the cooler conditions, Lawson was forced on the defence from word go, with Kimi Antonelli in DRS range of his car for the first stint.

When the teenager boxed, Lawson then had to contend with George Russell hunting him down behind.

Pitting to get rid of his mediums, Lawson came out just ahead of Antonelli – but he soon lost out to the Mercedes man, whose tyres were already up to temperature.

He was also jumped by Russell who ran a very long first stint to enact the overcut on his way to an eventual second place, but did well in the closing stages without DRS to keep a gaggle of cars including the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda behind.

“I think rewarding after the last 10 or 15 laps, it was pretty intense,” Lawson explained. “Obviously, it is a little bit disappointing from where we are starting and realistically we didn’t have the speed to fight with the guys in front today.

“But you’re always hopeful. And we tried everything today, but there just wasn’t quite enough, but still to have a P5 is big for us, especially in the Championship right now. Yeah, massive thanks to the team, we have had a good car all weekend and happy to come home with some points.”

Lawson’s drive was particularly impressive considering how much pressure he was under throughout the race, with Antonelli the only driver able to overtake him on the track. The Kiwi star does not have a confirmed seat on the grid for next year either – so bagging his best F1 finish was a timely result.

“Honestly I think it is the best we had today,” he concluded.

As for Hadjar, his race almost ground to a halt before it had even begun when a hydraulics issue was detected on his way to the grid. The team did a great job to fix the problem so he could start the race, but the rookie ran into problems at a very early stage.

“I had a really good start, went by Lando [Norris] into Turn 2, and I made a mistake on the Safety Car restart and lost two places," he said. "And from there the momentum was just not very good, the pace on the medium was not great.

“But then moving onto the hard, the pace was amazing and we were catching the group ahead quite fast but not enough to go and have a go.”

Hadjar eventually wound up 10th behind Charles Leclerc, which was all the more impressive considering he had struggled compared to his team mate across every session in Baku.

“I had a really bad feeling this weekend with the car, I wasn’t comfortable and still somehow, we went to Q3, double score finish," he continued. "So yeah, gives me a lot of positives that when I’m going to feel good inside that car, we are going to deliver way better.”