impress Red Bull bosses<\/a>\u00a0that he is worthy of a contract next year.<\/p>\nLawson’s drive in the main race will have neither enhanced nor spoiled his prospects.<\/p>\n
He lost ground on the opening lap, dropping to 13th when Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda went past several rivals.<\/p>\n
Lawson received a boost on lap seven when Wiliams driver Carlos Sainz was eliminated after being involved in a skirmish with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli. It was the biggest incident of the race, resulting in a yellow flag.<\/p>\n
Pit stop<\/h3>\n
Lawon’s medium-strength tyres gave him problems over subsequent laps, at one stage voicing concerns on the Racing Bulls team radio: “Mate, I am struggling with the tyres – mainly fronts, but rears at low speed are really bad.”<\/p>\n
In a mid-race pit stop – his only stop of the race – Lawson switched to soft tyres.<\/p>\n
The second half of the race was largely a procession, with drivers wary of passing and putting strain on their tyres in the sweltering temperatures which were reportedly higher than 40C at the venue.<\/p>\n
Momentum with Verstappen<\/h3>\n
Mexico hosts the 20th round of the championship, where Verstappen will hope to ramp up the pressure on McLaren.<\/p>\n
Piastri finished fifth with his teammate and closest rival Norris second after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – last year’s winner – five laps from the chequered flag.<\/p>\n
Piastri now leads Britain’s Norris by 14 points, while Verstappen has slashed his gap to the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.<\/p>\n
Verstappen also won Sunday’s (US Time) sprint from pole position, while the McLarens collided and retired, on a perfect weekend for the four-times world champion.<\/p>\n
Source: Reuters & RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liam Lawson has been narrowly shut out of the points at the Formula One US Grand Prix, finishing 11th after an exhausting mid-pack battle in scorching-hot Austin, Texas. The\u00a0New Zealand driver improved\u00a0one spot from his 12th place on the starting grid, having spent most of the race monitoring the health of his tyres on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15398,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15396\/revisions\/15398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}