Liam Lawson takes 'very strong' stance after hitting Singapore wall

Liam Lawson believes the pace of his Racing Bulls car at the Marina Bay Street Circuit is "very strong", even though a session-ending crash in FP2 prevented him from showcasing it.

The New Zealander hit the outside of Turn 17 during the second hour of running at the Singapore Grand Prix, terminally damaging his VCARB 02, which was left stricken at the pit lane entrance.

It triggered the second red flag of the evening and denied the 23-year-old the opportunity to set a qualifying simulation lap at low fuel on soft tyres.

Having concluded FP1 in P15, his collision with the wall left him down in P17 at the end of the second free practice session.

Looking back at the day, he explained his crash and reflected on the positives he can draw upon, saying: "Just I got a little bit too much kerb in [Turn] 16 and it bounced me across to the left, and then I took too much kerb with [Turn] 17, and then just tried to carry the speed, and right at the last minute, lost it and hit the wall.

"So it's a shame. I think overall, the car is very fast. It's been fast today. We had a difficult FP1 — I tried some things and have reverted, and it felt a lot better in FP2, felt a lot more comfortable up until that point.

"So, yeah, it's frustrating to obviously end the session in the wall, but up to that point, it was strong, and at least short run pace at the moment looks quite good."

Team-mate Isack Hadjar demonstrated the underlying pace of the Racing Bulls car, finishing FP2 second quickest, only going slower than McLaren's Oscar Piastri.

That form helped strengthen Lawson's case, and he was keen to highlight the silver lining after a difficult day on the timing sheets.

"I think it's very strong," he said of the VCARB 02's performance around the Singaporean streets. "We don't know what the others are doing.

"We obviously know what we're doing, and we're very happy with where the cars at, but we have to keep chasing it because it's very, very close.

"So we'll make some more changes overnight and fine-tune it. I'll learn from what happened today, and then we'll try to put it together for tomorrow."