VCARB between smiles and tears: Lawson flies while Lindblad is betrayed by the clutch
The Canadian Grand Prix turned into a bittersweet weekend for VCARB. On one side of the garage there were celebrations for Liam Lawson’s excellent seventh-place finish, while on the other there was deep frustration after Arvid Lindblad’s race ended before it had even properly begun.
The young British driver stalled on the grid following the formation lap, forcing a delay to the race start by several minutes. After qualifying in an impressive ninth position through one of the strongest performances of his young Formula 1 career, Lindblad could only watch helplessly as his car was pushed back into the pits from what had been a hard-earned starting spot on the grid.
“We had a clutch problem at the start of the formation lap. It’s a real shame because until that moment the weekend had been really positive. The team worked flawlessly throughout the entire weekend and the updates we brought were working really well, so it’s frustrating not to achieve the result that we felt we deserved,” Lindblad told the media after the race.
While disappointment surrounded one side of the VCARB garage, Liam Lawson had far more reasons to smile after securing a valuable points finish in Montreal.
The New Zealander certainly benefited from the retirements happening ahead of him, but he fully earned his four championship points after producing a long and determined defensive drive against Pierre Gasly, who was attempting to use the advantage of his hard tyres to mount a late-race attack.
“After a difficult start to the weekend, finishing in P7 is definitely a good result for us. Overall, it wasn’t an easy race, we also struggled with the car balance and tyre temperatures, and we were missing a bit of speed,” admitted Liam Lawson.
Despite the mixed emotions, VCARB leaves Canada with encouraging signs about the competitiveness of its latest upgrades. Lawson’s strong recovery drive and Lindblad’s impressive qualifying pace showed that the team is capable of fighting consistently in the midfield battle, even if reliability issues prevented the squad from fully maximising its potential in Montreal.
Leave a Reply