‘No favours’: Lawson shuts the door on Tsunoda in Red Bull family duel for Baku P5
Baku’s final laps gave us a rare sight: a Racing Bulls rookie keeping a factory Red Bull in his mirrors and not blinking. Liam Lawson soaked up unrelenting pressure from Yuki Tsunoda to bag fifth place on the streets of Azerbaijan – and there was never going to be a blue-car courtesy pass to change that.
Racing Bulls’ sporting chief Alan Permane was crystal clear afterwards: no instructions, no swaps, no helping hands. “We weren’t going to let him through,” he told DAZN, unapologetic about leaving Tsunoda to find a way past on merit. He didn’t. Lawson threw elbows where it mattered and brought his VCARB home ahead of the senior team’s car by six tenths.
The context made it spicier. Tsunoda, now Verstappen’s team-mate at Red Bull, had fresher mediums and pace. Lawson had track position and a nerve that, frankly, looked bulletproof for someone new to Baku in F1 machinery. Behind them sat Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton, eyes up, DRS open, opportunists waiting for even a hint of clumsiness.
Tsunoda weighed all of that and chose the bigger picture. Speaking to F1TV, he admitted he thought twice about forcing it with a McLaren — and Hamilton — looming. The championship calculus kicked in too. With Max Verstappen’s title push to consider, the risk of a rash dive on Lawson turning into a two- or three-position loss wasn’t worth it. “There were a lot of opportunities I could probably go inside and attack,” he said, “but there’s a lot more risk that the McLaren gets both of us.”
Lawson’s approach? More old-school racer. He didn’t know the exact position until the flag, but he knew the quality of the cars stacked behind and drove like a man defending something significant. “At the end of the race, I’m going to take a bit more risk to keep it there,” he said. You could see it: tidy on exits, aggressive on entries, just enough car in the middle of the road to deny Tsunoda a proper look without edging into silliness.
Permane loved it. He called Lawson “very tough mentally, very strong,” and praised the rookie’s build through the weekend — FP1 to FP3, a standout qualifying, then the kind of race craft that tends to stick in Red Bull’s memory bank. It wasn’t perfect: Racing Bulls had started P3 and P5, and Permane conceded they didn’t have the legs to fight the Mercedes. But to finish ahead of the McLarens, both Ferraris and one Red Bull? He called it “incredible” and he wasn’t overselling it.
The points haul backs that up. Lawson’s P5 delivered 10 points, Isack Hadjar chipped in with one for P10, and the team’s 11-point Sunday bumped Racing Bulls to 72 in the Constructors’ standings — enough to jump Aston Martin for sixth. The mood at Faenza? Quietly bullish. Williams sit next on the hit list in fifth, and Permane reckons higher-downforce tracks could tilt things their way. Think Zandvoort vibes rather than Monza drag races.
Zoom out and Baku’s final act felt like more than just two teammates from different shades of the same blue duking it out. Inside the Red Bull orbit, every weekend doubles as an audition. Tsunoda did the responsible, big-team thing. Lawson delivered the sort of gritty defending that wins fans — and maybe earns future upgrades. Hadjar kept racking up clean points too. No directives. No choreography. Just racing. That’s how it should be.
And on this particular Sunday, the kid in the junior car kept the senior one behind. In this paddock, that echoes.
