Liam Lawson reveals 'a lot of risk' behind rare Madring overtake

Liam Lawson conceded he had to "take a lot of risk" to complete one of the few overtakes of the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring. The Red Bull driver finished sixth, 86.746s behind winner Andrea Kimi Antonelli, after starting on the hard tyre and running a long first stint. A virtual safety car worked against him, but Lawson said his weekend had already been compromised by qualifying, having started from eighth.

Why it matters:

The new Madrid circuit drew heavy criticism from drivers for being almost impossible to overtake. Lawson's remarks highlight that core flaw, and organisers have signalled they are open to layout changes for future editions. How the venue adapts will shape its F1 future.

The details:

• Lawson's pass on Franco Colapinto after his tyre stop was one of the afternoon's few clean overtakes.
• "I had to take a lot of risk with Franco to make that pass, and I barely, honestly, made the corner without doing track limits," he said.
• VSC impact: A virtual safety car, called on lap 15 after Lance Stroll's brake issue, hurt his strategy further.
• "We started on the hard, and that sort of forced us to go a bit longer. The VSC wasn't ideal, but considering where we started, the damage was really done in qualifying," Lawson explained.
• Difficult to race: The layout is fun for qualifying but tough for racing, with F2 and F3 seeing multiple crashes. "It's just easy for it to go wrong."

What's next:

With organisers open to changes, the Madring's future layout is a key talking point. For Lawson, sixth was decent damage limitation after a difficult Saturday, but the bigger issue remains a track that produces processional racing.