Lawson left apologising despite 'shared Red Bull gamble'

Liam Lawson has revealed the moment that added insult to injury for his Red Bull debut weekend came as a result of a 'shared gamble' between him and the team.

Lawson's maiden race with Red Bull ended on lap 47 of a treacherous Australian Grand Prix, with the New Zealander the last of six drivers to suffer a crash at Melbourne's Albert Park.

Running out of the points when a sudden belt of rain lashed the circuit, on medium tyres, Lawson lost control of his car out of Turn 1 and ended up in a wall.

It was a risk that backfired as he and the team had mutually agreed to stay out on slick tyres when the safer option was to pit for new intermediates.

The incident was the icing on the cake of a weekend to forget as Lawson missed final practice due to a turbo issue, and then in qualifying he made "a stupid mistake" that resulted in him failing to escape Q1.

Due to line up 18th on the grid, the team opted to make late set-up changes to the car to account for the wet conditions that caused him to start from the pit lane. The race that followed proved a tricky one for Lawson even before his crash.

"We were hoping for a majority wet race," said Lawson, speaking to media, including RacingNews365. "It basically dried up probably more than we thought, so we struggled a lot with the fronts in the first stint, just overheating.

"We went to the slicks and the pace was okay for those few laps. But in the end, it started raining more than we thought. We thought initially it was just going to be in sector three and that we could survive half the track but it rained everywhere and I couldn't keep it on track."

As to the conversation that led to him staying out, he added: "We were on the same page. We wanted to take a risk. So we shared that gamble together. I was just apologising for putting the car in the wall."

Lawson learned 'not much'

Lawson cannot now wait to put Australia behind him and get back on track again at this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, although as to what he learned in Melbourne, he said: "Not much, honestly.

"I'm just looking forward to going to China and resetting."

Confident he can quickly pick himself up, he added: "It's something that I've been through plenty of times before in my career.

"Fortunately, we have just a few days off. But then China is a sprint weekend, so it's going to be tough in itself, but I'm just excited to go into other weekends."

In terms of his adaptation with the RB21 and how long he feels it will take him to become with the car, he concluded: "To be honest, I felt used to it in the [pre-season] test.

"It wasn't like I wasn't adapted or anything like that. It's just been a tough weekend."