Liam Lawson has detailed how his Racing Bulls team elected to change strategies on the fly helped to save his Brazilian Grand Prix result.
Having qualified in seventh place, Lawson was two places behind team-mate Isack Hadjar, who was fifth and thus was set to receive the preferential race strategy.
However, New Zealander Lawson was switched to a one-stop race, duelling in the closing stages with Hadjar and briefly making contact going into Turn 1 on the final lap.
In the end, Lawson finished seventh, 52.642s behind race winner Lando Norris, but in remarkable scenes, he was towing nearly half the field up the hill from Juncao on the final lap down to Fernando Alonso in 14th, who finished just 3.124s behind.
Reflecting on his sixth points finish of the season, Lawson explained how the switch to a one-stop was critical.
"I felt like we had the pace, but the main problem for me personally was being the second car in the queue," Lawson told media, including RacingNews365.
"I was always going to lose out, and we were planning on doing a two-stop, so that was going to be two stops. I honestly lost out because we were so close.
"At the first one, I think I lost a place to [Pierre] Gasly, and then they boxed in front of me, and I would have lost more positions in the second one.
"We knew we had the speed, but we had to figure out a way to utilise it, and doing the one-stop, although it was very, very close and definitely wasn't the fastest, it gave us track position, and we had enough speed to stay in front.
"It was very stressful [leading the huge DRS train], I was just trying to keep the lines, trying to manage energy and look after the tyres, which are super sensitive."
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