Lawson closes in on Racing Bulls record with three races left

Liam Lawson has secured his place on the 2027 grid with Racing Bulls, with Arvid Lindblad alongside him, and can now focus on a team record. Racing Bulls announced the pairing on Thursday, with Nikola Tsolov having to wait longer for his debut.

Lawson has 89 points after finishing seventh at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, 21 behind Pierre Gasly's 110 from the 2021 season, when the team was known as AlphaTauri. With three races remaining, he would need a sixth and two sevenths to pass that total. Fourteen of his points came while deputising for the injured Isack Hadjar at Red Bull in the Dutch and Spanish Grands Prix.

Lawson's total is also four points short of the 93 Sebastian Vettel would have scored in 2008 under the modern points system. If he reaches 100 points, he would be only the third driver to do so, as well as the highest-placed driver outside the top four teams since 2021.