Just how poor was Lawson’s pace? Chinese Grand Prix data analysed

18 comments on “Just how poor was Lawson’s pace? Chinese Grand Prix data analysed”

1. 

   Axel
   23rd March 2025, 20:16

   It seemed like everyone brought it home in the final laps thinking the race was basically over. I guess Russells gap to Norris at the end shows you shouldn’t back off until it is really over…
   1. 

      An Sionnach
      23rd March 2025, 22:56

      In the 1984 Austrian GP Lauda had a gearbox problem towards the end. He had a big gap to Piquet and was lucky that when his pace dropped off, Piquet also slowed down, assuming Lauda would pick up the pace if he went for it. After the race he couldn’t believe it when Lauda told him the race win was there for him.

      I think the race engineer and the team strategy can often assume too much about what’s possible. Even in the last year we’ve seen drivers grab the race by the scruff of the neck and win.

      This was where Lauda won that championship, as, he finished 0.5 points ahead of Prost. Luck and giving it a go are part of it. He who dares, wins. Especially if it’s someone like Lauda or Max.
2. 

   F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
   23rd March 2025, 22:36

   Lawson’s main problem was tire degradation indeed. When most drivers were getting faster as the fuel burned off, he was consistently getting slower. Impressive how Bearman managed to keep the mediums alive for so long, by the way.
   1. 

      pcxmac (@pcxmac)
      24th March 2025, 23:52

      pretty much, this is why Max was no where in the race until he pushed at the end. He had to keep the gap in order to make room for a push. At the back end of the field you are constantly pushing and losing your tires.

      If Red Bull had any sense they would immediately move over to Lawson’s side of the garage and support his setup decisions. Because if rumors are true Max is all but gone, and Toto will be laughing last as RBR sink after developing a garbage-setup that was only effective in maintaining Max’s position in the team.
3. 

   Mark (@blueruck)
   23rd March 2025, 23:28

   Surely RB has test data with Lawson in the simulator and track that can tell them what is going on. Is it the car and only Max can drive it or ???

   Checo must be smiling

   Switching after 2 races seems harsh but maybe the data supports the switch. Colapinto isn’t going to be cheap :)
4. 

   Dane
   23rd March 2025, 23:36

   At this point, Horner should grab a piece of humble pie and ring up Checo. I doubt Yuki is going to be substantially better than Lawson but Sergio knows this issues with the Red Bull and at least scored points.
   1. 

      Jonathan Parkin
      24th March 2025, 5:04

      I disagree. One of the reasons why Yuki wasn’t chosen imo was because he had been effusive about the Red Bull car at Abu Dhabi, saying it suited his driving style, meaning he liked driving front end cars

      Liam obviously doesn’t which is why he is struggling
      1. 

         Ging
         24th March 2025, 5:46

         The problem isn’t too much front, Liam is complaining there is no turn in after a few laps so he can’t get any drive out. So not enough front on his car for his liking. He prefers a pointy car. His style used to be that he squared up quickly to get better drive out. It’s one of his strengths. His car simply doesn’t want to turn a couple laps into a set of tyres. Go listen to his radio.
      2. 

         Esploratore (@esploratore1)
         24th March 2025, 12:03

         If tsunoda said it suited his driving style, why didn’t they choose him? Seems odd.
         1. 

            George.be
            24th March 2025, 17:43

            They’ve got a Benchmark experienced driver in both teams now, and a young dog learning to handle the pressure and lessons.
            If they switch Yuki and Liam, ReB might have a short term improvement, but the second RaB team is handicapped with two rookies. Who’s going to get the setup done, and how are you going to measure performance?
            As long as he doesn’t crash, causing the development budget to shrink, I think RB should have patience and help him get on top of the issues. These cars are difficult to drive, the tires are difficult to manage, setup is of utter importance, and Wintertests/Australia/China were not helping either: Wintertest: 4 hours in the pits, Melbourne an important PF3 lost and the other a sprint weekend, both on green tracks for this guy.

            I’m getting fed up with all the nonsense going towards Liam.
            It seems the whole world forgot that even Lewis had issues finding the keys to unlock performance from his Mercedes car. You can bash anyone as much as you like, but Lewis is in the top 5% ever, and if he didn’t solve the Mercedes puzzle, being fairly beaten by George…
   2. 

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      24th March 2025, 12:03

      No, perez was no longer performing, he was not worthy of that car in 2023 and 2024 (and even partially in 2022), 2 wrongs don’t make a right, search elsewhere. Tsunoda deserves a shot and it’s not like he’s gonna get another top team chance, so it’s make or break, else they need an experienced driver like they could’ve got with sainz.
   3. 

      Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
      24th March 2025, 17:03

      No way. Checo had more chances than Lawson will ever get and he was only going backwards. At least Liam has potential, even if he never realises it. I’ve never seen a driver disparity like this and Lawson must be in a terrible place right now but he has to find a way through it or hes toast.
5. 

   Mark (@mrcento)
   24th March 2025, 1:36

   I can see a (potentially pretty funny) scenario where RBR swap Lawson and Tsunoda mega early, and whilst Yuki does get more out of the RBR than LL did, it’s only enough so that he is fighting with LL in his old seat in the VCARB, who is now qualifying and racing higher in the Junior team than he was at Red Bull.

   I don’t even think it’d be a terrible idea for Red Bull (Or Lawson for that matter) to try it and see just how much of it was Lawson and how tricky the car really is. After all, Tsunoda has tested last years car and is on record saying he adapted to it…… Problem there is what do RBR do then?, If he is an improvement in the senior team, would they keep him in it?, Would they bin Lawson off from the Junior team and replace? (Colapinto on loan is being mentioned elsewhere, perhaps even incoming if Lawson doesn’t even get the VCARB seat), What if he’s still nowhere near Max?, do they persevere as long as he was doing better than Lawson and claim that was enough to justify it?, Do they swap back?, Do they drop Lawson entirely, move Yuki back to VCARB and bring in someone more experienced again (I.e Ricciardo for one last dance, given in hindsight, he probably would have been the safest call to come in last season for Perez over the last few races and assess)?, Do they potentially kill a third drivers career in a year in throw Hadjar in? (Given Markos comments after Australia, i doubt it). A complete mess.

   Only one who has probably come out of it well (Aside from Max, who now looks like he is performing miracles in an impossible machine) is Checo, who has ridden off into the sunset with a FAT payoff chuckling ‘I told you it was the car, i don’t look so bad now huh?, Adios’.
   1. 

      Ankita
      24th March 2025, 8:44

      I almost agree with you on everything. But it is not the second car that is bad. This is a new car compared to 2024’s. The problem is structural. It is about the team and how it is geared towards VER. This leaves the second driver vulnerable. So, Horner’s best ally last year was Checo because he could put the blame all on the driver. But his performance was so bad that Horner couldn’t justify keeping him for another year. A change had to be made in the hope that the new guy would do slightly better. But so far he is actually worse. This is exposing RBR’s bigger problem and this is truly concerning for Horner. If I were him I’d keep Lawson on the pretence that he needs time to adapt. Replacing him with another driver will just expose Horner and the team even more …
   2. 

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      24th March 2025, 12:12

      I agree they could’ve tried ricciardo, they had nothing to lose, ofc he wasn’t performing as well as tsunoda on toro rosso, but the point of ricciardo is that he was the only driver apart from vettel and verstappen who performed at a high level in the red bull.
6. 

   Mooa42
   24th March 2025, 5:32

   I think Lawson’s pace shows one thing,
   The nature of the RedBull car requires a lot of confidence and commitment to get the most out of it. Lawson’s lack of running at pre season testing and issues in Melb, mean he hasn’t had anywhere near enough time in the car to feel confident. In the dry Melb is a daunting track requiring a lot of confidence, in the wet with a car you don’t feel comfortable in, I was surprised he got as far as he did.
   Hopefully if it is a dry weekend in Japan Liam can concentrate on learning the oddities of the RedBull car on a track he knows very well.

   I’d hate to see them put Yuki in for his home GP and then see Yuki get beaten by Liam and Hadjar in the Racing Bulls. Leave Yuki in the Racing Bull for Japan, the crowd will go wild if their strategy team can get their act together and their early season form continues.
7. 

   Miroslav Hržica (@mhrzica)
   24th March 2025, 9:24

   I don’t understand the graph ‘2025 Chinese Grand Prix race chart’
   Description is: ‘The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time.’

   Piastri shoudn’t have constant ‘0’.
   On start gap should go up and down of x axis and in the end should come to 0 (for piastri) and on for everyone else gap to Piastri on the end.

   Average lap was 97.4 seconds.
   According to graph Piastri’s every lap (including laps when he pited) was exactly 97.4 seconds
   1. 

      Matthijs (@matthijs)
      25th March 2025, 8:52

      You have spotted an error, well done! The description is not correct. It is not a comparison with the leader average time. The graph shows the difference between a driver and the leader of the race in (milli)seconds in that particular lap. All the laps that Piastri was leading his line in the graph is equal to 0, since the time difference between the leader of the race and Piastri was 0 seconds. You can see for the brief moment that Albon was leading, his line in the graph is 0. He was then caught by Piastri and you see Albon’s graph going up as he lost time to Piastri.

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