Liam Lawson: ‘It’s been a tough, tough weekend’

New Zealand driver Liam Lawson at the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix.
Photo: Eric Alonso / PHOTOSPORT

New Zealand driver Liam Lawson has had to endure another tough weekend in Formula One.

Lawson failed to finish Monday’s Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

After qualifying at the back of the field, the young Kiwi was forced out with 14 laps remaining with technical issues with his Racing Bulls car.

“It’s just been a tough, tough weekend which is a shame,” Lawson said afterwards.

He was forced to start his first Canadian GP from pit lane after his team made changes to his power unit post qualifying.

The 23-year-old was put on a one pit-stop strategy but was unable to make inroads on the field.

He was eventually told to retire the car as it was suffering from cooling problems.

It is the third race he’s failed to finish this season.

“It’s disappointing, obviously it was going to be a very difficult race anyway from the pit lane.

“We had a cooling issue at the end so unfortunately we had to retire.”

Photo: GEOFF ROBINS

His Racing Bulls team-mate Isack Hadjar also struggled with pace and finished 16th, with just Lance Stroll behind him.

“The hard fact is that we didn’t have enough pace today to fight in the top 10,” Team Principal Laurent Mekies said.

“It’s a tight battle in the midfield and even only one-tenth can make the difference, and today it was enough to drop back instead of attacking forward.”

By not picking up any points Racing Bulls slip further behind Williams in the Constructors’ Championship and now sit in seventh place on the same points as Haas.

With Fernando Alonso finishing seventh for Aston Martin they are now just six points behind Racing Bulls.

Lawson is 18th in the Drivers’ Championship with the four points he picked up with his eighth-place finish at Monaco.

“We’ll keep working on the speed and I’ll keep working on myself to reset ahead of Austria,” Lawson said.

Round eleven is in Austria at the end of the month.

“Looking back at the last few months, every single improvement we’ve made as a team has been made after tough weekends like this one in Canada. We certainly take some positives from this weekend and the fight is on, so we’ll keep pushing all together,” Mekies said.