Liam Lawson didn’t need the data download to know how his Belgian Grand Prix had gone sideways. He’d lived it, repeatedly, in the most unforgiving place to be weak: Spa’s long, flat-out straights.
“Every single wheel-to-wheel combat I had today, I lost on the straights,” Lawson told Racing Bulls over the radio on his in-lap. “I don’t know what else I was meant to do.”
It was a raw message, and it landed because Spa had made the problem impossible to hide. Lawson wasn’t talking about one messy defence or a mistimed battery release; he was describing a pattern across a race where he found himself a sitting duck any time the fight opened up into a drag race. His engineer Ernesto Desiderio didn’t argue. “I know, Liam. I know. There was something not right. We’ll review exactly what it was.”
That “something” is what will keep Racing Bulls busy. The team arrived with a clear internal split: rookie Arvid Lindblad running the only upgraded VCARB 03, complete with revised engine cover, roll hoop, front-corner parts and a new rear wing, while Lawson was left in the older spec. Lindblad turned that package into a Q3 appearance and, initially, seventh on the grid; Lawson missed Q3 by just 0.038s. Penalties elsewhere shuffled them to seventh and ninth for the start, close enough for their afternoon to become intertwined.
Early on, it actually looked like Lawson might be the one to dictate terms. He had the stronger opening pace and committed to the first top-10 stop on lap 16. But when he rejoined behind Lindblad, the race turned into a live test of two cars that weren’t quite the same — and the optics weren’t kind.
The pair went wheel-to-wheel through Eau Rouge, and Lindblad squeezed Lawson as the road rose and the cars went light, forcing Lawson into the gravel as they surged towards Les Combes. Race Control noted the incident for “forcing another driver off the track” before deciding no further action was required, which will satisfy neither side completely: it wasn’t a slam-dunk penalty, but it was the sort of moment that sticks in a debrief because it didn’t need to happen.
Lindblad, for his part, pointed to energy deployment rather than any deliberate hardball. He said he pressed the boost “about 50 metres too late”, which left Lawson closer than expected as they crested. Then came the complication of traffic ahead. Lindblad was arriving quickly on Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and couldn’t fully commit into the braking zone without risking contact, which gave Lawson a look. “So Liam got me there,” Lindblad admitted.
He regrouped, had another go, and then waited for the right moment — managing tyres, timing his overtake availability, and making sure the next shot was clean. It was the kind of measured explanation teams like to hear from a rookie, and the kind that also underlines what Lawson was up against: even within Racing Bulls, the passing tools and top-end speed didn’t look equal.
Lindblad ultimately brought it home ninth. Lawson finished 12th, out of the points for the first time in six races, and the frustration in his voice afterwards had less to do with being beaten by his team-mate and more to do with feeling he couldn’t fight anybody properly.
“We were just too slow overall, so it’s frustrating,” Lawson said. “But honestly, after qualifying, I knew we weren’t as quick as we needed to be. I got a good start, but after that it was just a losing battle throughout the race.”
It wasn’t only Lindblad. Lawson was also passed by Gabriel Bortoleto and by Alpine pair Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly — with both Alpines picking him off on the Kemmel Straight, the most obvious place to expose a car that’s either trimmed wrong, deploying badly, or simply down on efficiency. On a circuit where overtaking can be brutally straightforward when you’ve got the legs, Lawson looked like he was carrying a parachute.
That’s what makes this weekend slightly awkward for Racing Bulls, even with Lawson still holding a healthy margin in the standings. He remains 10th in the Drivers’ Championship on 39 points, 17 ahead of Lindblad. But championships aren’t won in July by being ahead of the other car; they’re won by understanding why one side of the garage had a working solution — and why the other didn’t.
There’s a legitimate question here about whether Lawson’s race was compromised by being on the older specification, or whether something more specific went off-script on his side: a deployment issue, a set-up mismatch, or a problem that only shows up under race conditions when you’re in dirty air and forced into repeated acceleration zones. The team’s own radio suggests they suspect the latter. Lawson’s comments suggest he felt it from the moment the fights began.
Either way, Spa has a habit of turning internal development timelines into public conversation. When one car is upgraded and the other isn’t, the stopwatch doesn’t just measure performance — it measures patience, trust, and how well a team can keep two drivers pulling in the same direction when the track is broadcasting the differences at 330km/h.
Racing Bulls will insist it’s just the normal rhythm of introducing parts and analysing them. Lawson, though, will want the fix — and the parts — quickly. He didn’t sound like a driver who felt he’d been out-driven. He sounded like one who felt he’d been outgunned.
