Liam Lawson has matched the best result of his Formula One season, bringing his Racing Bulls home sixth in a chaotic British Grand Prix at Silverstone that ended under the safety car. It was the second half of a double points weekend for the Kiwi, and it pushed his 2026 tally past everything he managed in the whole of last year with 15 races still to run.
Lawson started tenth on Sunday, the slowest of the ten drivers to reach the final part of qualifying, and did most of his best work in the opening seconds. A double overtake on the first lap lifted him into eighth, a place he then held for much of the afternoon after surviving early contact with Oscar Piastri, who went on to finish outside the points in eleventh. Two cars ahead of Lawson then fell away in the closing laps, and he was in the right place to take advantage.
The race turned on two big moments near the front. Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, who had won Saturday’s sprint, hit trouble and dropped out of contention. Then Red Bull’s Max Verstappen spun on the 48th of 52 laps and could not drag his car back out of the gravel, bringing out the safety car that would decide the finish. Both incidents handed Lawson a place, and the race never went green again.
Charles Leclerc took the win, his first at Silverstone and the ninth of his career, leading home George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton crossed the line third despite a five second penalty for jumping the start. Lando Norris finished fourth, with Isack Hadjar fifth for Red Bull, Lawson sixth and his Racing Bulls team-mate Arvid Lindblad seventh. It was the fifth weekend in a row that Racing Bulls have put both cars in the points, a run that has quietly turned the team into one of the stories of the season.
For Lawson the numbers are the headline. Sixth was worth eight points, and added to the single point he collected for eighth in Saturday’s sprint it made this a full return from a weekend where he never looked like the fastest car on the grid. His season total now sits at 39, past the 38 he scored across the entire 2025 campaign, and he is within three points of Pierre Gasly in the fight for ninth in the drivers’ standings. It was his fifth points finish in a row and his ninth top ten result of the year.
Lawson was clear about where the improvement is coming from. “The car was just really good and for us it really came alive so very happy,” he said after the race, adding that the Racing Bulls feels like it is getting stronger at every circuit. That view is hard to argue with. Silverstone matched the sixth place he took in Monaco earlier in the year, and the consistency of the points runs suggests a team that has found something the bigger names have not.
The weekend was not entirely smooth. In Saturday’s sprint, Lawson was hunting the final point in eighth when Hadjar came at him down the inside, and the Kiwi cut across to defend. The move drew angry radio from the Frenchman and an investigation from the stewards for moving under braking. Lawson kept his place, walking away with a warning rather than a penalty after the stewards decided the defence was marginal but not worth a harder sanction. Hadjar, to his credit, did not push for one, telling reporters the closing speeds were high and that Lawson had left him enough room to the apex.
There was also the lingering echo of the previous round in Austria, where Lindblad overtook Lawson against a team instruction to hold position while the Kiwi nursed overheating brakes. Racing Bulls sorted the order out through strategy on the day, handing Lawson the place back, and by Silverstone he was treating it as closed. “It honestly wasn’t really much to do with me, and it’s something that, for me, was resolved in the race. I got my position back, so honestly, by the time we finished the race, I was completely fine,” Lawson said. He conceded the episode might make him a touch more alert the next time the pair are running nose to tail. “Maybe I’ll be more aware, but it’s not something that we really… I didn’t really think too much about it afterwards, honestly.”
The bigger picture is a driver settling into a seat that once looked far from secure. Lawson began 2025 at Red Bull’s senior team before an early demotion, and much of last season was spent rebuilding. This year the story is steadier and more encouraging. He is out-scoring a highly rated rookie team-mate in Lindblad, the car keeps delivering, and the points keep coming in a season where the midfield is unusually tight. Beating his entire 2025 haul before the halfway mark of the calendar is the kind of marker that tends to matter when teams start thinking about the following year.
Formula One now heads into the second half of the season with Lawson closer to the top ten in the championship than he has been at any point since his promotion. On this evidence, the Racing Bulls streak has plenty of life left in it.
What do you make of Lawson’s season so far, and how high can he climb before the year is out? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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