#*transcripted

[oversteerey]

Liam reacts to finishing P7 at the 2026 Canadian GP. [24/05/26]

ll30: we didn't really have much speed in the race, but uh, especially compared to the quality. so we definitely have to review it, but uh, we survived and brought the car home in seventh, which is great

[oversteerey]

Liam speaks to F1TV after the 2026 Canadian GP Sprint. [23/05/26]

ll30: i got some laps down which was good. the car seems quite fast as well. so obviously trying to protect it as well knowin we have qualifying this afternoon, uhm but yeah, it was okay. move forward. obviously quali is going to be very different the way we drive the car but i think it would have helped me at least a little bit.

[oversteerey]

Liam Lawson answers questions during the Thursday Press Conference at the 2026 Japanese GP. [26/03/26] [Jakub Porzycki. NurPhoto. Getty.]

Q: Liam, let’s come to you now. What a difference a year makes. You’re coming to Suzuka on the back of a brilliant Chinese Grand Prix weekend. Just how much confidence did those two points finishes give you in Shanghai? Liam LAWSON: Yeah, it was good. It was a good weekend for sure. To be honest we weren’t very, very fast through the weekend, we qualified quite badly and it definitely wasn’t a track that suited us, so we definitely made the best out of it. I think at the start of the race we were aiming to try and get to the points. We definitely didn’t expect to finish where we did. Obviously, it helps having some of the front guys not finishing, but even still we would have been back into the points, which would have been a good race for us. So happy with China. I’m sure this weekend’s going to be tough. Obviously, we have new changes to the cars this weekend that we have to try and adapt to, but it’s been a decent start.

Q: Just from a driving point of view, are you enjoying this year’s smaller, lighter cars? LL: They’re very different for us to drive at the moment. They’re very different to get used to each track. I think the big difference is we used to go into a weekend spending pretty much all of our time thinking about setting up the car and optimising the car balance. Right now, it’s really energy management. We spend so much time talking about trying to manage the energy and get the most out of that because there’s so much lap time in it. The racing is quite different as well. We have to basically use a lot of different tools and drive a lot differently to try and overtake and defend, and it’s something that we’re still learning. So far, because it’s new, it’s obviously quite different and difficult, to be honest. So, it’s something that we’re also getting used to.

Q: Are you having to be more strategic in your approach to the racing this year compared to last year when you had DRS, for example? LL: Yeah, I think so. I think there are just more consequences when you get it wrong. If you use too much energy or something like this, it can be quite punishing. So we definitely have to… you’re doing a lot more thinking, I would say, when you’re driving.

Q: (Ben Waterworth) Question for Liam. You were touching on before in China about how it was a race you weren’t expecting to do so well, recover to get some points through circumstances, you mentioned. How encouraging is it that you’re able to come away from a race weekend that you maybe were not expecting to do well and come away with some points? How do you think that will place you for the rest of the year when it comes to tracks where maybe you’re expecting that as well? LL: Obviously – touch wood – so far, it’s been quite good reliability. We obviously had a tough start in Melbourne in the race just from an issue on the start line, but in terms of the rest of the reliability it’s been okay. Obviously in China a lot of cars, I think seven cars maybe, didn’t finish. So at this point of the season it’s really important to basically make the most of those races and that’s really what we did in China. We played a good strategy. Basically, all the things in our control, obviously outside the performance, which we try to get the most out of, we maximised, which is what we’re trying to do each weekend. So we’ll try to do the same this weekend. I think obviously going into the next part of the season quite a few teams will be bringing, like us, upgrades and things, and the development race will be fully under way.

Q: (David Croft) How have you had to change your driving style this season with the new cars, or have you not had to change your driving style? What’s different in the cockpit when you’re racing this year? LL: Yeah, I would say it’s quite easy to overdrive. I think in last year’s car you go into qualifying and you try to make quite a big step. Obviously with how much downforce the cars have, you gain grip and you start attacking the car in qualifying. Obviously you can still do it and get it wrong and overdrive, but it was definitely an exciting factor going into qualifying when your car is like… you’re trying to attack it. But I think this year the harder thing is it’s very easy to overstep that and use too much and basically make a mistake. I think this year, pretty much all quali, like Melbourne quali for me, it took me all the way to Q3 on a used tyre to actually just put a lap together, because all the laps before that I just kept trying to attack and basically making a mistake, and actually just bringing it back. So, it’s definitely a different thing that we’re having to get used to.

[oversteerey]

Liam reacts to the Sprint at the 2026 Chinese GP. [14/03/26]

liam: it's a, it's a great result. it's good obviously from where we started. a bold strategy call. but full credit to the team, obviously they did a very good job. very happy to come home with points. we do need to find a little bit of speed for tomorrow if we want to fight for the points in the race.

[oversteerey]

Liam Lawson speaks to F1TV after Qualifying P6 at the 2025 Las Vegas GP. (22/11/25)

liam: uh, it's uh, been a tough, tough qualifying session. um, it's crazy for us to be using the extreme wet. we never really used this tire and i think it just shows how slippery it was today. um so just happy, happy with the calls. um i think we did miss the last lap by like one or two seconds and i think uh, we maybe had an opportunity to be even higher up um without that but uh obviously very happy with um, with the performance today.

[oversteerey]

Liam speaks to Laura Winter and the F1TV crew after the race. [24/05/26] [transcript only]

laura winter: [oh, breathless stuff.] we'll all just take a moment because what an afternoon we have had. and we've got liam lawson alongside as well to debrief his face. we'll come to the mercedes battle very soon. but firstly, liam, congratulations on what's been a tricky weekend. take it right back to the start then because you missed fp1 with the hydraulics issue. no sprint qualifying and yet you stand here with points. P8.

ll30: yeah, it's been honestly, it's been a crazy weekend. um, i've never had that where i've missed an entire day. obviously the, the, the teams you know are very good at rebuilding cars. but the issue we had was severe and also you can't recover the car during the session, so um, yeah it put us out for friday and uh, i tried to prepare for yesterday for quali but honestly it was harder than i expected. and year we put the car nearly in q3 but missed out and then today just survived. i mean a lot of guys retired and we survived.

jolyon palmer: yeah lets talk through the race. so you went for a medium tire at the start, there were some on soft, some on inters, what was the communication like when you're on the grid deciding that?

ll30: i mean, for us, like we definitely talked about it and i remember they, when i got back in the car after the laps to the grid, it looked more damp and we talked about it, but uh for us it was a clear dry start. and yeah, we thought the medium was going to be okay. so, the first couple laps were tricky, but for us our warm-up's been quite good this weekend overall. i think a lot of teams need, needing to do build laps, and for us, we've been able to do sort of first push and that's been okay for us.

juan pablo montoya: no, i think it's very good. something that looked really tricky today was the conditions, managing the tires. everybody was in the radio going 'no tempreture, tires are coming off'. why is the big deal with the tires coming off? like are they cooling down when you're driving?

ll30: it's um, that was definitely a hard thing today. i can't actually imagine what it would have been like if it was wet. because yeah in the dry, we're, you know pushing flat out during the stint we're sort of on our target for tires on our target for you know, a warm-up lap. so you know normally in a race they're plus 20, plus 30, something like that. so in the VSC's you were just flat out trying to keep temperature. it was definitely a tricky one.

palmer: keeping pierre behind at the end, never in doubt

ll30: no it was definitely in doubt. there was a couple of times. the thing for me, i had so much uh braking issues into [turn] 10 and we had really good traction out of there, but there was so many laps i would go in and i would lose the rear and both times he was attacking me. i just couldn't get through turn 10. so yeah, it was tricky going into the last chicane, but we've had good efficiency, good straight line speed, so helped me today.

winter: turn 10 looked tricky for a number of drivers out there. liam, i short changed you at the start. i said P8 you're P7. you held onto the position, look we've got to let you go, i know you have to heard to the stewards now. yeah so we'll look for the outcome of that one, good luck for it, but thank you and well done. great to see you in the points. brilliant to see you up here. thank you.

[oversteerey]

Liam Lawson speaks to media after finishing P12 at the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. (20/04/25) (transcript available under the cut)

liam: i didn't have a great start. and then just wrong place in uh in on the first lap when everything sort of happened and i went off track. so it's a shame. i think the the car was pretty quick honestly. uhm and we just spent the whole race in traffic again no matter what we did so it's a shame.