Racing Bulls faced a difficult weekend in Canada. Tires never reached the right temperature, with lots of graining and overheating issues slowing down Hadjar and Lawson, but Mekies warns: “After tough weekends, we have always come back much stronger.”
Racing Bulls went to Canada hoping to continue the excellent streak achieved during the European triple header at Imola, Monaco, and Barcelona (a total of 20 points between Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson). However, things did not go as the Faenza-based team’s leadership expected.
Beyond the errors made during qualifying, where Isack Hadjar received a three-place grid penalty for obstructing Carlos Sainz in Q1, both the Parisian and Lawson never managed to get their tires into the right window during the race.
Isack Hadjar, for example, paid a high price for excessive tire degradation from the very beginning. This forced him to make an early pit stop but re-entered into traffic.
“Everything went wrong. I had very high tire degradation with the Medium tires. We had immediate problems with the front left, and our pace was really slow. In Montreal, it’s easy to overtake, but I never had a single opportunity. That’s how it is.”
“From the start of the weekend, I struggled to drive the car. The confidence was really low, even in qualifying. Ninth place was good, but I managed that lap by really fighting with the car. And you can’t do that for 70 laps.”
“I don’t know why all this happened. It was even hotter in Barcelona, and we were fast there. So it wasn’t a matter of temperature.”
Liam Lawson struggled to get his tires in the right window from qualifying, starting the race in 19th place. At that point, the team decided to swap a new power unit and have him start from the pit lane, but like Isack Hadjar, he never had the pace to climb up. Additionally, he had to retire on lap 53 due to overheating of the power unit.
“In Canada, we didn’t have the pace to fight and score points. Isack had a big graining issue on his Medium tires in the first stint, while we were forced to retire Liam’s car because of a cooling system problem,” said Laurent Mekies, Racing Bulls team principal.
“The midfield battle is very tight, and even a tenth of a second can make a huge difference. That was enough to push us back in the hierarchy in Montreal. Looking back at recent months, every single improvement we have made as a team came after very tough weekends for us, like Canada.”
Currently, Racing Bulls is sixth in the Constructors’ Championship with 28 points, tied with Haas, which also has 28. Ahead is Williams with 55 points, while behind are Aston Martin with 22 and Sauber, who climbed to 20 after the 14 points brought home by Nico Hulkenberg in the last two races.
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