{"id":146790,"date":"2025-11-21T17:53:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146790\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T17:53:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:53:41","slug":"lawson-hoping-for-improvement-in-vegas-after-toughest-race-of-last-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146790\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawson hoping for improvement in Vegas after ‘toughest race’ of last season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiwi F1 driver Liam Lawson is hoping for another good result at the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, a race he described as his “toughest” last season. <\/p>\n

The Racing Bulls driver enters the weekend off the back of a good result at the Brazilian Grand Prix earlier this month, crossing the line seventh<\/a> and taking a haul of six points \u2013 helping solidify his team’s place in the Constructors Championship standings, 10 points ahead of Aston Martin. <\/p>\n

Asked by media if he was hoping to pull a similar result on the streets of Vegas, Lawson said: \u201cIt\u2019s a very different track, it\u2019s probably the most different track that we go to this year.”<\/p>\n

He described it as a “challenging” and “tough” race. <\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was very, very tough for us.” <\/p>\n

Lawson finished 16th out of the 18 cars that completed the race last year. He said his team had spent a lot of time reviewing last year’s race data to find ways he could improve. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably the toughest race I had in the car last year,” he said. \u201cSo I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be challenging.”<\/p>\n

He said the speed of his VCARB 02 had been \u201cvery good\u201d across the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully that follows through this weekend as well.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Liam<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson of New Zealand driving the (30) Visa Cash App Racing Bulls VCARB 02 leads Oliver Bearman of Great Britain driving the (87) Haas F1 VF-25 Ferrari (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

A good result for the Kiwi this weekend will come at a crucial time for the Kiwi, as he battles to prove he belongs<\/a> in F1. <\/p>\n

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is the only driver in the Red Bull faction on the grid to have a confirmed drive for next year. <\/p>\n

It’s believed Lawson’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, will be promoted to the senior team next year. It’s also been reported that high-ups at the team are looking at getting F2 driver and Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad into F1 next season. <\/p>\n

That leaves Lawson and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda without a certain future in the sport. <\/p>\n

Lawson said last week’s points finish was “very important” for his future in F1. <\/p>\n

He made just one pitstop last week, fighting off a host of contenders for seventh place, including Hadjar in a battle that saw the duo make contact with each other on the final lap \u2013 narrowly avoiding disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something that definitely wasn\u2019t the plan heading into the race,” Lawson said about Sao Paulo. <\/p>\n

“It\u2019s always nice when you try something like that and it works out. It only just worked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we would love to carry that momentum forward into the last couple of races,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Lawson will hit the track for practice today and tomorrow before qualifying at 5pm on Saturday NZT, then it’s lights out for the race at 5pm on Sunday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi F1 driver Liam Lawson is hoping for another good result at the Las Vegas Grand Prix this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-146790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}