The Brazil F1 team-mate clash you missed as Isack Hadjar "pushed it too much"

Racing Bulls celebrated a return to points after three scoreless weekends with a double top-10 finish for Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar in seventh and eighth at Interlagos – although the pair survived contact on the final lap to get there.

Lawson made a bold one-stop strategy work but came under huge pressure from Hadjar and a gaggle of midfield cars on the final few laps, a fight that didn’t make the live broadcast as the TV director focused on the battle between Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen for second at the Formula 1 Brazil Grand Prix.

Entering the final lap Hadjar attempted a bold pass around the outside of Turn 1, but as he squeezed Lawson the two made wheel-to-wheel contact on the apex of the corner. Hadjar collected a snap of oversteer to keep his car on the road, with Lawson securing a hard-earned seventh after a mammoth 52-lap stint on the medium tyres.

Afterwards, Hadjar admitted he had pushed his team-mate a little bit too aggressively in the unseen clash. “I pushed it a little too much,” he told Sky. “But honestly, it was very fun. He went on a one-stop and on the very last lap, I’m in his gearbox. I think you can’t do any better than that. And I tried and I overdid it, kind of my mistake.”

But Lawson, who is not known to be averse to a robust wheel-to-wheel battle, saw no bones in Hadjar’s move even if contact between team-mates is a no-go.

“He was going for a move. It’s the type of corner that curves in and he’s obviously trying to clear me before the braking and I think just misjudged it,” Lawson responded. “But we both came out of it, so it was okay, and more importantly, for the team to have two cars seventh and eighth is great today.

“It’s the last lap of a race. Honestly, as much as it’s the ideal thing to do, there’s no way that we’re not going to race for a position like that. So I respect that obviously we’re lucky that we came out of it but it’s been a great weekend for the team.”

Team principal Alan Permane said his drivers “ended up racing each other, which we trusted them to do”.

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team, Pierre Gasly, Alpine, Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team

Meanwhile, Hadjar was not best pleased with the timing of his first pitstop. The Frenchman was leading the midfield battle in fifth when he was allowed to be undercut by Haas’ Oliver Bearman, who ended up finishing ahead of both Racing Bulls cars. Hadjar came out in traffic behind Bearman and the second Haas of Esteban Ocon, who was on older medium tyres. The rookie’s race engineer apologised afterwards for a mistake with its strategy tools.

While Racing Bulls regained some momentum in the battle for sixth with its double points finish, the Frenchman said: “It’s not a good day for me. The strategy on the first stint was not good. We lost a bit of time. We tried to make up for it. But we didn’t have an amazing pace for that.

“We had a very good Sunday, points-wise. It helps us for sixth place. But it’s not a good day for me.”

The Anglo-Italian teams heads into the final triple-header on 82 points, 10 more than seventh-placed Aston Martin and 12 points ahead of Haas, which has been scoring freely with an impressive Bearman over the past two weekends.

The Brazil F1 team-mate clash you missed as Isack Hadjar “pushed it too much”

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