Liam Lawson made a positive return to familiar surroundings at Racing Bulls during Thursday practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, while teammate Arvid Lindblad endured a much tougher opening day on the streets of Baku.
Back with Racing Bulls following a three-race spell filling in for Isack Hadjar at Red Bull, Lawson quickly settled into the car and finished FP1 seventh fastest.
Lindblad was close behind in eighth, giving Racing Bulls two cars inside the top 10 at the end of the opening session.
The picture changed in FP2, however, as Lawson slipped to 12th while Lindblad’s session came to an early end after making contact with the barriers through Baku’s tight castle section.
Lawson’s best FP1 lap of 1:46.440 put him seventh on the timesheets, before he improved to a 1:45.681 during the second session.
Despite finding more lap time, the Kiwi dropped five places as several rivals made larger gains between sessions.
Lawson also had to react quickly during one of his flying laps when Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari appeared ahead of him in the final sector, forcing the New Zealander to take avoiding action.
While there is more performance to find ahead of qualifying, Lawson was pleased to be back behind the wheel of his Racing Bulls machinery.
“It was nice to be back in my own car today. The morning was pretty positive, and we were feeling competitive, but the other teams seemed to make a step forward in FP2, so we’ll look into that and try to make another step ourselves for tomorrow. Overall, it’s been a good day, and it’s great to be back home. It’s going to be very close this weekend, so I’m looking forward to qualifying around here.”
Attention now turns to finding improvements in the slower sections of the circuit, with Lawson and Racing Bulls targeting a return to the top 10 when qualifying gets underway.
On the other side of the garage, Lindblad’s promising start unravelled early in FP2. The rookie had already experienced a trip into a run-off area during FP1 but recovered to post a 1:46.601 and finish eighth. His second session lasted just four laps.
Lindblad clipped the barriers through the Turn 8-9-10 sequence before making further contact, leaving his Racing Bulls damaged and triggering a red flag.
It was another costly FP2 incident for Lindblad after he also crashed during second practice at the previous round in Madrid.
The 19-year-old accepted responsibility for the latest mistake and immediately turned his attention towards recovering on Friday.
“It wasn’t the best day for us today. I apologise to the team for the crash in FP2; it’s a shame, as overall I felt pretty good in the car. We’ll look at everything tonight and see where we can improve and make a few changes ahead of tomorrow.
“My main focus now is to get back into the rhythm and bounce back for the rest of the weekend. Maximising FP3 will be really important to put ourselves in the best possible position heading into Qualifying.”
Despite the damage, Racing Bulls Team Principal Alan Permane took encouragement from Lindblad’s pace immediately before the accident.
“It’s been a pretty decent day today overall. We’re where we thought we would be and have some time to make some changes ahead of tomorrow. It was a bit of a shame for Arvid; he was pushing hard and went a bit too far, but the car was feeling good up until then, and he was significantly up on the lap, which was positive.
“It’s great to have Liam back in the car. Arvid and Liam work very well together and their joint feedback improves both cars through the weekend. From what we’ve seen today, our target remains both cars in Q3 tomorrow.”
Permane was also reluctant to be overly critical of Lindblad following the crash, describing the incident as a small misjudgement rather than something requiring a heavy response.
“It’s not the time to come down on him like a ton of bricks; it’s the time to support him.
“It was a millimetre. It’s a bit of a shame. It’s certainly not the right time to crash like that, if that was Q3 and he was absolutely going for it, you can understand it. But it’s a little bit of ‘the car was feeling good’. I think it’s just a little bit of rookie enthusiasm, but nothing more than that.”
Permane was equally pleased to have Lawson reunited with the team after his temporary switch to Red Bull, highlighting the working relationship between the Kiwi and Lindblad.
“Much as we love Yuki [Tsunoda] — and the whole team does, he’s a very popular figure – it’s good to have Liam back in his car, in the team, working very, very well with Arvid, and those two lift each other up through the weekend.”
Lawson’s return therefore began with a relatively clean day and useful mileage, while Racing Bulls face a busier night repairing Lindblad’s car and searching for the gains required to challenge further up the order.
With the midfield again appearing tightly packed in Baku, the team’s objective remains clear: put both cars into Q3 when qualifying begins.
Header Image: Alex Pantling/LAT Images via Red Bull Content Pool
