Lawson won’t change approach to racing despite Perez clash

Adam Cooper
31/10/2024

Liam Lawson admits that he made a mistake when he had contact with Sergio Perez in the Mexico City GP – but the New Zealander insists that he won’t change his approach to racing.

Lawson also had a clash with Franco Colapinto later in the race, and eventually finished 16th. Perez, who suffered bodywork damage in the incident, was classified 17th.

The costly contact between the RB and RBR cars did not go down well with the Red Bull management.

“It was a tough race for us,” said Lawson. “And obviously there’s many things you reflect on the race, and you look over things that could have been better. And we take those into this weekend.

“But obviously, fortunately, with the time frame of the triple-header, we don’t have many days to do that. And it’s focusing on Brazil this weekend.”

After the race Lawson had a talking to from Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, who clearly were not happy that Perez’s race was compromised.

“I don’t think they want me to race differently,” he said. But obviously the target is not to make contact with another Red Bull Car.

“And as I said at the time, it wasn’t my intention in the moment, and looking back, maybe I could avoid it. And clearly that’s that would have been the right thing to do at the time.

“It’s clear, the target is not to obviously crash into any car, but is especially a Red Bull car. And it wasn’t, obviously my target in the incident, either. I was trying to avoid that.

“So obviously, looking back, maybe there’s things I could have done differently, I could have cut the chicane and avoided it completely.

But in the moment, I’m racing as well. And you have a split second to make these decisions. So it’s something I’ve spoken to the team about afterwards, and I’ve reflected on, and I’ll learn from going into this weekend.”

Lawson added: “That attitude towards racing, and how I approach races and F1 won’t change. That’s how I’ll always be. But at the same time, there’s things in there, if I make mistakes, I’ll always learn from them, and clearly in Mexico I made a mistake.”

It could be argued that Lawson’s aggressive style had indicated to the Red Bull management that he’s just the kind of character who could deal with being a team mate to Max Verstappen at RBR.

However he downplayed that suggesting when it was made by formu1a.uno.

“I don’t know how to answer that question, because I’m not the person deciding that stuff,” he said. “As I said, I race the way I race, and that’s how I’ve always been. And as I said, I’ll learn from maybe mistakes that I made.

“But at the same time, I’ll take advice, obviously, from everybody I can. My target is not to drive and make enemies of anybody. That’s not the goal, obviously. But at the same time, I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to win.”

Lawson added: That attitude towards racing, and how I approach races and F1 won’t change. That’s how I’ll always be. But at the same time, there’s things in there, if I make mistakes, I’ll always learn from them, and clearly in Mexico I made a mistake.”

Asked about his post-race conversation with Perez he said: Yeah, briefly we spoke after the race, but at the same time, we left the track very early, immediately afterwards, anyway.

It was an on-track fight, and I apologise, obviously, for what I did after the incident. But in terms of the fight we had on track, it was I guess, deemed as a racing incident, and something that was in the moment’s battle.”

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