Liam Lawson was left wondering what might have been after front wing damage derailed a promising recovery drive at the Italian Grand Prix, leaving the New Zealander 14th at Monza as Kimi Antonelli produced a remarkable charge from the back of the grid to victory.
Starting from the pit lane after a difficult build-up to Sunday’s race, Lawson initially made strong progress through the field and appeared to have the pace to challenge for points during his second consecutive weekend standing in for the injured Isack Hadjar at Red Bull.
However, contact with Nico Hulkenberg shortly after an early red flag damaged Lawson’s front wing and ultimately forced him into an additional pit stop, costing more than 30 seconds and leaving him with too much ground to recover.
At the front, Antonelli completed an extraordinary drive from 19th on the grid to take his seventh victory of the season, passing Mercedes teammate and championship rival George Russell late in the 53-lap race.
Max Verstappen completed the podium for Red Bull in third. Lawson was already facing an uphill battle before the lights went out.
The Kiwi had qualified 14th on Saturday but was set to start from the rear of the field after taking a power unit penalty. Red Bull then changed the rear wing assembly of his RB22 under parc fermé conditions, forcing him to start from the pit lane.
Despite that, Lawson made an encouraging start. Running on the medium tyre, he quickly began working his way forward before the race was brought to a halt following a heavy crash for Charles Leclerc.
The Ferrari driver lost control exiting the Curva Alboreto on the second lap and hit the barriers at high speed. Race Control initially called a Safety Car before red-flagging the Grand Prix to allow repairs.
Leclerc climbed from the damaged Ferrari unaided, while the stoppage brought the remaining field back into the pits.
Lawson had already climbed to 15th by that stage, while Antonelli had made similarly rapid progress from 19th to 12th. Following a lengthy delay, the field returned to the grid for a standing restart, with Lawson switching to the hard compound.
It was there that his hopes of continuing his charge towards the points began to unravel. Lawson made contact with Hulkenberg approaching the opening chicane, damaging his front wing and leaving the Red Bull with significant understeer.
Despite the damage, he continued to make progress and briefly climbed as high as 11th, sitting just one position outside the points.
The pair came together in another close battle at Turn 4, where Hulkenberg was forced onto the grass while attempting to pass the Kiwi. The stewards investigated the incident and took no further action, although Lawson received a warning for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
Lawson later explained that damage sustained earlier in their battle had also cost him a mirror and reduced his visibility on the right-hand side of the car.
“I was next to him, and he just kept coming over at the entry to Turn 1,” Lawson said after the race.
“Probably exactly what he did to me. I probably did it to him. I lost my mirror, so I couldn’t see on the right-hand side of my car.
“But if I squeezed him, which maybe I did, I didn’t mean to. But maybe, obviously, he didn’t mean to do it to me either. But it broke my front wing, and that’s not what you want.”
Lawson eventually had little choice but to return to the pits for a replacement front wing, with the stop dropping him well behind the main pack. The timing proved particularly costly.
With most of the field having already changed tyres during the red-flag stoppage, there were few further scheduled stops for Lawson to take advantage of. He was therefore left trying to erase a deficit of more than half a minute largely through outright pace.
He recovered several positions over the remainder of the race, eventually crossing the line 14th after passing cars from Aston Martin, Audi and Haas, but the gap created by the additional stop proved too large to overcome.
“It was a pretty tough race,” Lawson said.
“I had a really good first lap from the pit lane and made up quite a few places, but at the restart I lost part of my front wing after contact with Nico, so I had to box and lost over 30 seconds.
“It’s a shame because we had really good speed for the race, but with the way the strategies played out after the restart, nobody really boxed again apart from under the VSC, so unfortunately, we had too much time to make up.
“Without the issues, I think we had a pretty good chance to move through the field.”
Despite the result, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was encouraged by Lawson’s race pace, believing a points finish had been within reach before the contact.
“Liam showed good pace after a challenging start of the race from the back of the grid following his PU penalties,” Mekies said.
“Contact with Nico meant we had to change his front wing and ultimately killed his chance for points.”
Lawson’s 14th-place finish brought an end to a difficult weekend at Monza after his late call-up to replace Hadjar, the power unit penalty and a frustrating qualifying session.
However, the pace shown on Sunday gave the Kiwi something positive to take away as Red Bull prepares to head to Madrid for the next round of the championship. While Lawson was attempting to recover further down the order, Antonelli was producing one of the drives of the season at the front.
Pierre Gasly had started from a surprise pole position for Alpine alongside Russell, but his hopes of converting it into victory quickly faded as the established front-runners worked their way through.
Russell took the lead early before Verstappen briefly moved ahead, while Antonelli continued an extraordinary rise through the field. The Italian had started 19th following his own power unit penalty but was already seventh shortly after the restart.
He continued picking off the cars ahead, passing the likes of Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen before eventually taking the lead from Russell at the opening chicane on Lap 18.
The two Mercedes drivers then traded positions during an intense battle at the front, with different energy deployment strategies creating several opportunities to attack and counterattack around Monza.
A Virtual Safety Car later provided another crucial moment. Antonelli stopped for fresh medium tyres while Russell remained out on an older set of hards, giving the Italian a significant tyre advantage for the closing stages.
After briefly running through the gravel while pursuing his teammate, Antonelli regrouped and closed back onto Russell before making the decisive move late in the race. From there, the championship leader pulled clear to take the chequered flag around four seconds ahead of Russell, completing a remarkable 19th-to-first recovery on home soil.
The victory also ended a decades-long wait for an Italian winner of the Italian Grand Prix.
“Unbelievable,” Antonelli said after the race.
“I’m so happy. I could never have imagined being here today. We managed to pull it off, and I’m really, really happy.”
Verstappen secured third after an aggressive afternoon that included briefly leading the race, giving Red Bull a podium despite being unable to match Mercedes’ pace over the full distance.
Lando Norris finished fourth ahead of McLaren teammate Piastri, while Hamilton recovered from his early clash with Leclerc to finish sixth. Pole-sitter Gasly slipped to seventh, with Arvid Lindblad eighth, Franco Colapinto ninth and Yuki Tsunoda completing the top 10.
For Lawson, 14th did little to reflect the pace Red Bull believed he had available.
After beginning the afternoon from the pit lane and climbing towards the edge of the points, the damaged front wing turned what had been shaping up as a strong recovery drive into an afternoon of damage limitation.
Header Image: Sam Bagnall/Sutton Images via Red Bull Content Pool
