New Zealand driver Liam Lawson scored points in both races at the Singapore Grand Prix over the weekend, finishing fifth in Saturday’s sprint and seventh in Sunday night’s Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The results lift him to ninth in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship as his Racing Bulls team prepares to decide whether he keeps his seat for 2027.
Max Verstappen won both races for Red Bull. In the Grand Prix he led from pole, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc second and Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli third, according to the official Formula 1 race result. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were fourth and fifth for McLaren, Lewis Hamilton sixth for Ferrari, and Lawson seventh, ahead of Nico Hülkenberg, George Russell and Isack Hadjar. Lawson’s rookie teammate Arvid Lindblad finished 15th.
Lawson told reporters after the race he was “very proud of the team, it’s been a pretty intense few weeks”, RNZ reported from a Reuters account. Verstappen, who took his first win in Singapore, said “It’s taken a while, but I think this race was very good.”
The sprint on Saturday was the more dramatic of the two races. Rain delayed the start and shortened the distance, there were two safety car periods, and nine drivers failed to finish. Russell crashed out of the lead at the end of the first lap, handing the lead to Verstappen, who went on to win ahead of Hamilton and Leclerc, Sky Sports reported.
Lawson started the sprint from eighth, his best qualifying position for a sprint so far, and stayed out of trouble over 20 laps to finish fifth and collect four points, the NZ Herald reported. Fifth equals his best finish in Formula 1, a result he also achieved at the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and at Monaco this year. It was only the third time he has scored in a sprint, after seventh in China and eighth at Silverstone earlier in the season.
The six points from the Grand Prix took his season total to 75. That leaves him ninth in the standings, 22 points behind Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and 34 ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. RNZ described Lawson as the “best of the rest”, meaning the leading driver outside the four top teams. Singapore was his third weekend this season with points in both the sprint and the Grand Prix.
Lawson has had an unsettled few months. He stepped up to Red Bull at Zandvoort in August after Hadjar injured his wrist, stayed in the senior team for several races, and set a New Zealand Formula 1 points record in Madrid. He then went back to Racing Bulls for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix when Hadjar returned, and finished seventh at the rain-hit Bahrain Grand Prix, held in Malaysia, a week before Singapore.
The bigger question now is his future. Lawson’s place at Racing Bulls beyond the end of this season has not been confirmed, and the team has three candidates for two seats. Bulgarian driver Nikola Tsolov is second in the Formula 2 standings with two rounds left, while Lindblad has scored 38 points in his first season. Together Lawson and Lindblad have Racing Bulls fifth in the constructors’ championship, the team’s best position yet.
Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane told Formula 1 before the Singapore weekend that the decision would come “in the coming weeks”, RNZ reported on Monday.
“We’re in no rush. I think everyone knows we’ve got two fantastic drivers,” Permane said. “We’ve got a fantastic driver in F2 at the moment, and they’re all there and ready to go. But three doesn’t fit into two, of course.”
He said the team would “take a little bit more time and make sure we get the right pairing for next year”, with speed and pace at the top of the list. Because Racing Bulls exists partly to develop drivers for Red Bull, Permane said it was “not just about the here and now, it’s also about what they can do in the future.”
That development role cuts both ways for Lawson. Red Bull has a long record of moving drivers quickly between its two teams, and Lawson has already been promoted and moved back once. At 24 he is no longer the youngest option, but he is the one producing the most points in the second team, and his Singapore weekend came at a useful moment.
Lawson himself was not drawn on the speculation. “It’s obviously normal this point of the year,” he said after the race, “but right now I’m just focused on trying to score each weekend and trying to keep extending.”
At the front of the championship, Antonelli’s third place extended his lead over Mercedes teammate Russell to 102 points, meaning he can clinch the world title at the next round in Austin. The United States Grand Prix is round 18 of the season and is about two weeks away, which also lines up with the window Permane gave for the Racing Bulls announcement.
For New Zealand fans, that makes Austin a big weekend on two fronts. A strong result there would add to Lawson’s case, and the team’s decision could land either side of it. Either way, two points finishes in a chaotic Singapore weekend have kept him firmly in the conversation.
Should Racing Bulls keep Liam Lawson for 2027, or is it time for Red Bull to give a new driver a chance? Tell us what you think 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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