Liam Lawson denies 'breakthrough' claim after difficult Racing Bulls return

Liam Lawson has rejected the suggestion his sixth place at the Austrian Grand Prix was a performance "breakthrough" after initially enduring an underwhelming return to Racing Bulls. The New Zealander was jettisoned from his Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen two rounds into the current F1 season, with his poor form leaving the Milton Keynes squad unable to see a pathway forward. Yuki Tsunoda was parachuted in to replace the 23-year-old who was demoted back to his prior seat, at Racing Bulls. Whilst the Japanese driver has been an improvement on what Lawson could achieve in Melbourne and Shanghai, he has also struggled to adapt to the rigours of a troublesome RB21. In part, Red Bull rationalised the switch as protecting Lawson, who the team claimed was bereft of confidence, something he has strongly refuted. But it did nonetheless take him time to re-acclimatise to life at the Faenza-based outfit, with new team-mate Isack Hadjar comfortably overshadowing him through their first few weekends together. With the season at its halfway point, despite still being two rounds from the summer break, the standout highlight for Lawson was his sixth-place finish at the Red Bull Ring, but he does not believe it was a sudden, road-to-Damascus moment. "No breakthroughs, just gradual build-up," Lawson told F1 when reflecting on his career-best result. "Even from the first triple-header, the speed was good. It wasn't great, but it was quite good there. Since then, it's been in a pretty good place." Whilst he maintains that the pace was there from the outset at Suzuka, the start of the European season saw Lawson become increasingly competitive, something that culminated in the Spielberg result. "We've gone to a lot of tracks… Monaco, we were very strong in practice; Barcelona strong in practice; Canada strong in practice," he explained. "Then you go to qualifying, and little things make a difference. It's not good enough, because the results haven't been coming consistently enough, but the speed itself has been quite good." Lawson did, however, concede it was a "breakthrough of points" in Austria, but is now focused on replicating that result on a more consistent basis. He added: "Why Austria was a great weekend was obviously to have that breakthrough of points, and I guess probably show a little bit of what's been building for a while, but also what needs to be coming more frequently."