{"id":541319,"date":"2026-07-24T03:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T03:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/541319\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T03:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T03:32:17","slug":"f1-lawson-warns-racing-bulls-upgrade-wont-be-perfect-in-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/541319\/","title":{"rendered":"F1: Lawson warns Racing Bulls upgrade won’t ‘be perfect’ in Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiwi Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson says new upgrades to his Racing Bulls car<\/a> will be no guarantee of an immediate turnaround, as he looks to bounce back at this weekend\u2019s Hungarian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Lawson will receive the same upgrade VCARB 03 package used by his teammate Arvid Lindblad in Belgium, after Racing Bulls elected to fit the new parts to the driver who qualified higher at Silverstone. <\/p>\n

Lindblad qualified one place ahead of Lawson, earning him the upgrades first.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi endured a frustrating weekend around Spa-Francorchamps without the upgrades, finishing in 12th<\/a> after starting from ninth \u2014 ending his five-race points-scoring streak.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of Monday’s race at the Hungaroring, the 24-year-old warned the new upgrade package would likely not fix all of his issues.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s good to have the full package this weekend, but it doesn\u2019t solve all the answers,” Lawson said.<\/p>\n

“It definitely wasn’t the full the full gap that we were missing last weekend. I can’t just sit here and be like, ‘Oh, it’s just going to be perfect now’. <\/p>\n

“But we’ve obviously looked over a lot of things, and I’ll try and do a better job this weekend and hopefully it’s strong enough.”<\/p>\n

\"Liam<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson of New Zealand driving the F1 race car No 30, the Racing Bulls VCARB 03 (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Lawson had suggested after Belgium’s race that his car was lacking straight-line speed compared with several of his rivals.<\/p>\n

The Hungarian Grand Prix will mark the halfway point of what has been Lawson\u2019s strongest full Formula 1 campaign to date.<\/p>\n

Despite the disappointment in Belgium, Lawson remained 10th in the World Drivers’ Championship on 39 points \u2014 already surpassing his total from all of last season.<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls were also locked in a tight battle with Alpine for fifth in the constructors\u2019 standings, with both teams level on 61 points heading into Hungary.<\/p>\n

Lawson said the team\u2019s recent form had given him confidence heading into the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last five or six races have been very strong,\u201d he said. “We\u2019ve had a lot of double points finishes and we\u2019ve been closing the gap to Alpine.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019d be amazing if we could jump them this weekend and go into the second half of the year in a good position.”<\/p>\n

Lawson finished eighth during last year’s race in Hungary,<\/a> won by McLaren’s Lando Norris, and will look to return to his strong run of form<\/a> for Monday’s race. <\/p>\n

Qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix will take place on Sunday (2am NZT), before the main race on Monday (1am NZT). <\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Ryan Fox arrives back in NZ, and the political heckle that\u2019s going viral. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson says new upgrades to his Racing Bulls car will be no guarantee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213,1745],"class_list":["post-541319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541319","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=541319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}