Racing Bulls packed up from Las Vegas with emotions split right down the garage wall: Isack Hadjar kept his rookie momentum rolling with a feisty sixth place, while teammate Liam Lawson saw his night unravel almost immediately after lights out.
The result? Eight points for the team, and one stinging missed opportunity.
Isack Hadjar has made a habit of outperforming expectations since joining the senior Red Bull fold, and Vegas was no exception. Starting firmly inside the top ten, he kept his head while neon lights, cold conditions and chaos swirled all around him.
The Frenchman ran a medium-to-hard strategy, fending off experienced operators like Nico Hülkenberg and Lewis Hamilton across the 50-lap slog. But even with a P6 finish – one of Racing Bulls’ strongest results of the year – Hadjar emerged sounding like a man who left a little on the table.
“I’m a bit disappointed with the pace we had,” he admitted. “So far this weekend, over one lap we were more competitive. But we obviously hadn’t done any long run simulations and to be fair, I feel we managed a little bit too much.
“We expected more graining, but in the end it was a full-push race and we couldn’t really catch up with the Williams. But compared to the other cars, it is still pretty decent, so I take the [P6].”
The result strengthens Racing Bulls’ grip on sixth in the constructors’ standings, now 17 points clear of Haas, though Williams remain too far ahead to realistically catch.
Still, for Hadjar, Vegas was the most complete weekend of his young F1 career.
“Honestly, I think as a team and myself, it’s probably been our best weekend as there’s been no mistakes since FP1 to the last lap of the race. We ticked every box so it is a perfect weekend,” he concluded.
Perfect for one side of the garage, at least.
Lawson stepped into Saturday night with a golden chance: he’d out-qualified his teammate and had a points-paying grid slot under the Nevada lights. But his race lasted precisely one corner before spiralling into damage control.
The Kiwi braked too late into Turn 1, tagged Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, and immediately broke his front wing – the most expensive party foul in Las Vegas.
©RB
“I just made a mistake, didn’t expect the field to check up so much at Turn 1. It wasn’t my intention, I wasn’t even trying to overtake, yeah, just went in deep and unfortunately made contact with Oscar,” Lawson said, taking full responsibility.
“Big apologies to the team obviously. We did a good job yesterday, had two cars starting in the points and we should have had two cars finish in the points. It’s a shame.”
Forced to limp around an extra lap before pitting, Lawson tumbled to last and never recovered, eventually finishing 14th. The lone consolation? His direct Red Bull rival, Yuki Tsunoda, also failed to score.
Still, Lawson knows chances are dwindling.
“It was a great Quali, we had a quick car. It’s just more frustrating when you have a quick car and you don’t convert in a race, especially at this point in the season,” he said.
Eight points gained for Racing Bulls – but perhaps twice as many missed by Lawson. The final two races now loom even larger.
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