‘We tried to put a bit of fun into it’ – How Racing Bulls decided who got the upgrades in Belgium

Alan Permane has detailed how Racing Bulls selected whether Liam Lawson or Arvid Lindblad would receive the latest upgrades at the Belgian Grand Prix, with the team boss admitting that updating both cars would have been “impossible”.

As the only team on a run of four consecutive double points finishes, Racing Bulls are hoping to extend that streak at Spa-Francorchamps and overtake their midfield rivals Alpine to become the best of the rest in the standings.

Part of that mission involves bringing new components, including an updated sidepod, roll hoop, brake drum (to target better airflow) and rear wing (to generate more downforce). The cooling update will exclusively be run on Lindblad’s car due to the lack of time to implement it on both machines after the British Grand Prix.

Asked why the rookie, who has experience racing at this circuit in his junior career, was chosen over Lawson, Permane said: “It’s not so easy and honestly, we don't like bringing updates for just one car.

“It was impossible for us to do it to two cars. It’s a chassis modification – we had to shrink the roll hoop and we just couldn't do that in time between Silverstone and here on both cars.

“What I did is I sat down with both drivers in Austria on Saturday evening. We’d had a very good Qualifying and I thought while everyone’s in a good mood, I’ll give some bad news – we’ve got a good update coming but we can only do one car for Spa, and the next car will be done for the race after in Budapest.

“I first suggested the very simple option, which is fair – we upgrade no cars for Spa, and then both of them for Budapest. Of course, they looked at me like I was crazy, and I wouldn’t have ever done that. We didn’t really seriously consider that.

“The next thing I said is we can flip a coin, or make it a little bit of fun and say whoever qualifies in front in Silverstone gets the upgrade, and they both signed up for that and that’s what we did.”

Lindblad and Lawson are both performing at a consistently high level as Racing Bulls continue to build on their momentum, leading Permane to admit that the New Zealander will be prioritised if the situation reoccurs this year.

“I think what we’ll do if it happens again later in the season, and it may happen – we’ve got another big thing coming at some point – it'll go to Liam, so we won’t do that again,” the team boss confirmed. “He’ll automatically get it next time. We tried to put a bit of fun into it rather than just allocating it to someone.”