Lindblad scores Sprint point as Lawson scrambles after leak
At the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Racing Bulls experienced a mixed Friday combining an encouraging aero upgrade with a reliability setback.
Racing Bulls introduced an aero upgrade for the weekend; Head of Trackside Engineering Mattia Spini said, “the aero upgrade worked as expected.”
Spini indicated Liam Lawson likely would have had the pace to join Arvid Lindblad in SQ3 had he not been sidelined.
Liam Lawson was stopped early in FP1 by a hydraulics-related problem; SpeedCafe reported he stopped at Turn 4 with a suspected hydraulic leak.
Sources disagree on how much running Lawson had before the issue: F1 Technical said he completed only “two push laps”, SpeedCafe said “two or three laps”, and Total Motorsport said the car stopped after five laps of FP1.
The hydraulic leak forced a Power Unit change on Lawson’s car (F1 Technical).
Racing Bulls were unable to repair Lawson’s car in time for Sprint Qualifying, so he watched the Sprint Qualifying session from the sidelines (Total Motorsport; SpeedCafe).
Source disagreement on Lawson’s sprint start/participation: F1 Technical reported the hydraulics issue “ruled Lawson out of Sprint Qualifying and left him to start 22nd,” while other reports (SpeedCafe/Source 4) record that in the 23-lap sprint Lawson gained six places to finish 11th and “recorded the most overtakes of the field in the sprint.”
Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane called the hydraulic issue “a frustrating blow” on a sprint weekend and said the severity of the issue was unclear (SpeedCafe).
Arvid Lindblad progressed to SQ3 in Sprint Qualifying and qualified ninth for the Sprint (F1 Technical; Total Motorsport; SpeedCafe).
Lindblad’s best Sprint qualifying time was roughly 0.8 seconds slower than George Russell’s pole pace (Total Motorsport).
Arvid Lindblad converted his Saturday result into one championship point by finishing eighth in the sprint (SpeedCafe).
After limited running Lawson said he would be “playing catch-up,” and planned to learn from the Sprint session and Lindblad’s telemetry to improve his setup for qualifying and attempt to salvage Sunday’s Grand Prix (Total Motorsport; SpeedCafe).
Despite Lawson’s absence from the sprint session, multiple sources reported Racing Bulls showed encouraging pace from the aero upgrade and aimed to prioritise scoring Sprint points with Lindblad and preparing a fast, reliable car to give both drivers the best chance in Qualifying and recovery opportunities (F1 Technical).
In Saturday qualifying (for the Grand Prix), SpeedCafe reported Lawson qualified 12th and “missed Q3 by 0.040 seconds,” with Lawson struggling to warm the soft tyres and experiencing front locking on his final run (SpeedCafe).
Background/context: Lawson sat 10th in the championship standings on 10 points heading into Saturday at the Canadian GP, and earlier this season he recorded a DNF in Miami on May 3 due to a gearbox failure (Total Motorsport).
