Liam Lawson strikes the wall in FP2 but insists Racing Bulls pace is "very strong"
Liam Lawson's Friday at the Singapore Grand Prix ended abruptly with a heavy hit at the outside of Turn 17, yet the New Zealander remained bullish about the underlying speed of his Racing Bulls VCARB 02. The FP2 crash, which left his car stricken near the pit-lane entrance and triggered a red flag, denied him a low-fuel qualifying simulation on soft tyres and left him P17 on the timesheets after P15 in FP1.
How the Turn 16–17 error unfolded
Explaining the incident, Lawson detailed how an aggressive approach to the kerbs unsettled the car: "Just I got a little bit too much kerb in [Turn] 16 and it bounced me across to the left, and then I took too much kerb with [Turn] 17, and then just tried to carry the speed, and right at the last minute, lost it and hit the wall." The hit caused terminal damage and ended his session on the spot.
Speed in hand, even if the lap never came
Despite the setback, Lawson emphasised that the VCARB 02 felt transformed after reverting setup changes between sessions: "We had a difficult FP1 — I tried some things and have reverted, and it felt a lot better in FP2, felt a lot more comfortable up until that point." He pointed to team-mate Isack Hadjar's eye-catching P2 in FP2, just behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri, as evidence of genuine one-lap pace in the car.
"I think overall, the car is very fast. It's been fast today... at least short run pace at the moment looks quite good."
Overnight fine-tuning and lessons learned
With the pack tightly bunched at Marina Bay, Lawson knows the margins will be razor-thin heading into Saturday: "We don't know what the others are doing... we're very happy with where the car's at, but we have to keep chasing it because it's very, very close. So we'll make some more changes overnight and fine-tune it. I'll learn from what happened today, and then we'll try to put it together for tomorrow."
Key takeaways
- Crash at Turn 17 ended Lawson's FP2 and prevented a soft-tyre quali sim.
- Lawson: car felt "very fast" after setup reversion from FP1 to FP2.
- Isack Hadjar underlined team pace with P2; Oscar Piastri topped FP2.
- Focus shifts to overnight tweaks and a clean, representative lap on Saturday.
