{"id":625501,"date":"2026-10-09T15:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T15:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625501\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T15:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T15:42:15","slug":"sick-track-lawson-primed-for-singapore-gp-after-solid-malaysia-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625501\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sick track’: Lawson primed for Singapore GP after solid Malaysia drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiwi F1 driver Liam Lawson is hoping for another strong start ahead of this weekend’s physically demanding Singapore Grand Prix. <\/p>\n

The series arrives in Singapore for a sprint weekend following last week’s exciting Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, where the Racing Bulls driver finished seventh<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Lawson shot up to fourth in Sepang, battling race-winner Max Verstappen before falling back as faster cars passed. <\/p>\n

Lawson scored his first F1 points in Singapore during the 2023 season and hoped to maintain this season’s consistency at what he called a “sick track”. <\/p>\n

“With sprint weekends, you get two shots at everything. So yeah, I’m excited,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I think we normally start, at least recently, started the weekends quite strong, and then I feel like everybody else is sort of caught up. So some of that gets taken away. Hopefully we can start strong here.” <\/p>\n

This weekend’s race is being held at the Marina Bay Street Circuit \u2013 a nearly 5 kilometre, 19-corner gauntlet known for its close walls and sharp turns. Singapore’s bumpy public roads and swampy heat make it one of the most physically gruelling races on the calendar. <\/p>\n

Reflecting on last week, Lawson said he didn’t expect the race start in Malaysia<\/a> to go as well as it did. <\/p>\n

\"Racing<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson of New Zealand steers his car during the second practice session ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Sepang, Malaysia (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

“I just didn’t have any wheel spin on the initial drop, and I think in the wet, that’s what makes the biggest difference. <\/p>\n

“Everyone kept going back past me, and I didn’t expect to be fighting Max in turn one,” he said “It put us in a really good position.”<\/p>\n

By the end of the race, Lawson had extended his ninth-place lead over Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in the drivers’ standings and delivered crucial points for Racing Bulls<\/a> in their battle for fifth in the constructors’ championship. <\/p>\n

“Regardless of how our speed was, it was good through the race, but it just put us in great track position, and from there we had quite a smooth race,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I’d obviously love it to rain every weekend to have starts like that.” <\/p>\n

The first and only practice session for the Grand Prix starts at 9.30pm tonight (NZT), followed by sprint qualifying at 1.30am and the sprint at 10pm on Saturday. <\/p>\n

Qualifying will be at 2am on Sunday, with the race at 1am on Monday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi F1 driver Liam Lawson is hoping for another strong start ahead of this weekend’s physically demanding Singapore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2300,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-625501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625501","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=625501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}