Lawson could hardly have made a better start in bid to replace Perez · RaceFans

On his return to Formula 1 racing in Austin, Liam Lawson did exactly what his predecessor failed to do: Put the team’s regular driver Yuki Tsunoda firmly in the shade.

A sprint weekend was always going to be a tricky event for Lawson to debut at, as he had only one hour of practice before the first qualifying session. However the fact he would have to take a grid penalty in the grand prix for a power unit replacement reduced some of the pressure on him.

Lawson called his sprint race qualifying effort “scrappy” and lined up 15th on the grid. His race to 16th was a mixed bag: Though he was always going to lose a place to Oscar Piastri he performed a superbly opportunistic pass on Fernando Alonso, then successfully repelled the two-times champion’s attacks.

However Esteban Ocon caught Lawson napping at turn 15 and passed him, to Alonso’s enormous frustration, leading him to have words with the RB driver after the race. Alonso marked Lawson’s card as the qualifying session began, but it failed to knock him off his stride, and the beginning of the serious action was the point at which the returnee really started to shine.

Lawson produced a gem of a lap in Q1, stringing his three fastest sector times together for a 1’33.339. Had he replicated that in the subsequent rounds he would have started ninth on the grid – the very position he eventually finished.

That would be pointless conjecture had Lawson tried to set a better time in Q2 and failed. However he did not make an attempt at a lap time in the session because of the power unit penalty which condemned him to start at the back. Instead RB used him to provide a slipstream to Tsunoda, who even with that help and the benefit of track evolution worth four-tenths of a second on average, failed to beat Lawson’s time. That was a big win for Lawson.

In the race he climbed from 19th on the grid to score two points for ninth place. This was a remarkable drive – only twice this year have drivers gained more than 10 places from start to finish, and they had much more competitive cars. George Russell made up 14 places on Sunday and Lando Norris gained 11 in Baku.

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Lawson certainly benefited from the cards falling in his favour, but he also took full advantage of the opportunities which fell his way. One of five drivers to start the race on hard rubber instead of mediums, he immediately gained four…