Lawson retired with a ‘destroyed’ car as Hadjar did not have the ‘pace’ for points in Mexico

Liam Lawson had a very short Grand Prix in Mexico City, the Kiwi racer the first to retire after a handful of laps thanks to car damage picked up at the start in a collision with Carlos Sainz into the first corner.

With Isack Hadjar also failing to score, Racing Bulls had a day to forget at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, although the Frenchman at least collected plenty of data for the team heading into the next race in Brazil.

The same could not be said for Lawson, who pitted for a new front wing at the end of the first lap, before discovering the damage to his car was too extensive to continue.

“We had a really good start and there was a lot of space on the outside in Turn 1, so I filled the gap," said Lawson afterwards. "A lot of drivers were sliding and I left plenty of space next to Carlos [Sainz], but then he decided to cut the chicane without looking left.

“This meant he drove into the side of me and unfortunately it destroyed the side of my car, meaning we had to retire. The speed we've had all weekend has been good, so it's a shame we weren't able to demonstrate that here in Mexico.”

The onboard footage from both drivers does appear to show Sainz jinking wide and colliding with Lawson, but there were also cars on the Spaniard’s inside. The stewards opted not to investigate.

As for Hadjar, he started on the slower medium tyre and ran a contrary strategy to many around him. He managed to rise into the points late on, but having had to fit a set of used soft tyres, could not keep Gabriel Bortoleto at bay in the fight for P10.

After dropping out of the points, the rookie then lost out to Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon in the closing stages.

"It was a frustrating race,” Hadjar said afterwards. “I had a pretty good start but then I made a mistake in Turn 6 during the first lap where I lost a few places, and that compromised quite a lot of our race.

“We had a good strategy overall but I think we just didn’t have enough pace to fight for points today. We only had used soft tyres and that didn’t help us make the difference when some guys from the back were gaining time on us driving faster on new compounds.

“Looking back at this weekend, I think there are still some positives to take and to carry on to the last four races of the season.”

Neither Hadjar nor Lawson have scored since Azerbaijan, as the pack close up behind in the fight for sixth in the Championship. Racing Bulls have a three-point margin over Aston Martin, who also failed to score in Mexico City, but Haas are on the rise and now just 10-points back thanks to Ollie Bearman’s brilliant drive to P4.

“We’ll be putting our heads down and working hard, making sure we’re putting everything together for the Sprint [weekend] in Brazil in a couple of weeks time,” concluded Team Principal Alan Permane.