Lawson completes Red Bull redemption, claims points in Dutch Grand Prix

Scars healed, demons exorcised, wrongs righted.

The result is the same however you want to say it, after Liam Lawson completed his Red Bull redemption with a seventh placed finish at Formula One’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Sixteen months on from his rapid demotion back to Racing Bulls, Lawson was Red Bull’s shining light at Zandvoort, as the best-placed finisher of the motorsport giant’s four cars to claim his first points for the team.

Deputising for the injured Isack Hadjar, Lawson put in a polished, professional performance to stay out of any trouble, in a race that saw senior teammate and four-time world champion Max Verstappen fail to even reach the end of the first of 72 laps.

Considering Red Bull’s pace disadvantage to the Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari cars – Verstappen and Lawson could only qualify seventh and eighth respectively – this was as good a result Lawson could have produced, barring a late 10-second penalty for a yellow flag infringement.

“It was a pretty lonely race for me, we just struggled to match the guys in front,” said Lawson.

“I knew it would be a hard race, but I didn’t expect it to be that hard. But I’m sure I’ll learn from it, I’ll go and reflect to try and understand what I could have done better.

“It’s a decent result, but in a car like this, you want to finish higher.”

With just an hour to learn how to drive Red Bull’s difficult RB22 in Friday practice, Lawson’s efforts over the weekend are nothing to be baulked at, as the Kiwi banked six points and took away his ninth top 10 grand prix finish of the season so far.

The result sees Lawson retake ninth position in the drivers championship, after briefly losing out to Alpine’s Pierre Gasly after Saturday’s sprint race.

At the front of the field, world champion Lando Norris made it two wins from two either side of the summer break, after turning pole position into his second victory of the season. Norris had spent the better part of the race trailing the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, but managed a two-stop strategy to perfection to keep the chasing pair in his mirrors and take the chequered flag.

World championship leader Antonelli attempted a late charge on Norris with a set of new tyres, but had to settle for second, as his championship lead was extended to 53 points over teammate George Russell and Hamilton, who claimed third and fourth respectively.

Meanwhile, without Lawson, Racing Bulls finished agonisingly short of the points, as the pair of Yuki Tsunoda and Arvid Lindblad crossed the finish line 11th and 12th respectively, as Gasly claiming the final points in both the sprint and grand prix closed the gap to three points in the fight for fifth in the constructors championship.

Just one race back from the mid-season summer break, Formula One will now have a week off, before returning for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza to start next month.

Liam Lawson leads Alpine's Pierre Gasly at Formula One's Dutch Grand Prix. Photo / Red Bull

With rain falling all morning on the Dutch coast, and teams facing a tricky choice on which tyres their drivers began the race on, avoiding chaos into turn one was Lawson’s earliest objective.

After going wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen off the start line and into turn three, Lawson could only watch as his teammate’s final home race ended before the end of the first lap. With water still on the surface at turn 14, Verstappen lost control, hit the wall, and triggered a red flag that lasted close to 30 minutes.

Lawson did excellently to avoid the chaos that hit Verstappen, and gained a place to resume in seventh once the lights went out again on a dryer track, after also losing Haas’ Ollie Bearman to engine failure before the restart.

While Red Bull’s pace disadvantage saw the lead six cars pull away from Lawson, the Kiwi was also able to build a healthy gap to Gasly, as the Kiwi settled into his afternoon’s work.

As drivers ahead of him started to pit, Lawson climbed as high as fifth, before stopping on lap 22 and emerging in ninth – places he quickly made back with a tyre advantage over Williams’ Alex Albon and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

At the halfway stage, Lawson cut a lonely figure in the field, with more than 15 seconds to the cars in front of him, and more than 20 to those behind.

By lap 41, Lawson’s company came from overtaking the backmarkers, as it became clearer and clearer that all the Kiwi had to do was bring his car home in one piece, after completing his final pit stop on lap 48.

After fitting a set of medium tyres for his final stint, there was hope Lawson could catch the McLaren of Oscar Piastri – asked to complete the final 27 laps on a set of softs.

But needing to make up close to 30 seconds to do so, a virtual safety car triggered by the retirement of Haas’ Esteban Ocon ended any slim hopes of a top-six finish for the Kiwi, further hit by his late penalty.

Dutch Grand Prix finishing order

1. Lando Norris - McLaren
2. Kimi Antonelli - Mercedes
3. George Russell - Mercedes
4. Lewis Hamilton - Ferrari
5. Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
6. Oscar Piastri - McLaren
7. Liam Lawson - Red Bull
8. Nico Hulkenberg - Audi
9. Fernando Alonso - Aston Martin
10. Pierre Gasly - Alpine
11. Yuki Tsunoda - Racing Bulls
12. Arvid Lindblad - Racing Bulls
13. Gabriel Bortoleto - Audi
14. Franco Colapinto - Alpine
15. Sergio Perez - Cadillac
16. Carlos Sainz - Williams

Did not finish: Max Verstappen - Red Bull, Ollie Bearman - Haas, Lance Stroll - Aston Martin, Esteban Ocon - Haas, Valtteri Bottas - Cadillac, Alex Albon - Williams

Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.