Liam Lawson to adjust F1 tactics against "aggressive" Sergio Perez

Liam Lawson says he has to “be careful” when racing an “aggressive” Sergio Perez, after the latest episode in their long-running rivalry.

In Saturday’s Montreal sprint race, Perez put in an incredible drive to cross the line in 11th place after staying ahead of a queue of potentially quicker cars, led by Lawson.

However, the stewards deemed that during his defence, the Cadillac driver had forced the Kiwi off the track, and a penalty dropped him back to P14.

It was the latest in a series of on-track encounters between the pair, whose rivalry developed when they were both in the Red Bull camp.

They famously made contact in the 2024 Mexico City GP, an incident that led to Lawson giving the local hero the finger.

"Obviously [I was] trying to come through the field from the back,” said Lawson when asked about the Montreal incident. “And I just have to be careful when racing him. He's quite aggressive.

“So in the end, he pushed me off, and I just decided not to race him anymore. It's not really worth it for no points. But yeah, it seems to be a thing when I race with him.”

Meanwhile, Lawson has been outshone by team-mate Arvid Lindblad in Montreal, having lost most of FP1 to a technical issue and then been unable to take part in sprint qualifying at all.

In main qualifying, he earned P12 on the grid while still trying to make up for the lost track time.

“Honestly, it's okay, but it's definitely not good enough,” he said. “Especially with how close the margin was, we definitely should have been through.

“I didn't help myself, I made a couple of mistakes in Q2, lost a set of tyres with a lock-up, and then just a little mistake.

“And that put a lot of pressure on that last lap and made it a little bit tricky. It's a shame, but obviously tomorrow's more important.”

Lawson was encouraged by the fact that Lindblad demonstrated that Racing Bulls has the fifth fastest car this weekend.

“Honestly, the pace has been really, really good,” he said. “And I'm obviously gutted that I can't be in there as well. We should definitely have both cars for Q3, even if you look at the margin that Arvid's got to the Alpine, it's a shame.

“I tried to prepare for it as much as possible after no running yesterday, and it was just a little more tricky than I thought.”