Lawson: I learned my lesson after Perez incident

SAO PAULO, Brazil — RB driver Liam Lawson says he learned lessons from his collision with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at the Mexico Grand Prix, but will not change his overall approach to racing.

Lawson and Perez collided at Turn 5 while racing for position in Mexico, with Lawson gesturing with his middle finger at the Mexican when he passed him later in the race.

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Perez told media after the chequered flag that Lawson, who replaced Daniel Ricciardo at RB two races ago, had the wrong “attitude” for F1, claiming the New Zealander was “out of control”.

Lawson, who drives for the Red Bull-owned RB team, said he spoke with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and motorsport advisor Helmut Marko following the Mexico Grand Prix.

“I don’t think they want me to race differently,” he said. “But obviously the target is not to make contact with another Red Bull car.

“And as I said at the time, it wasn’t my intention in the moment. Looking back, maybe I could have avoided it. And clearly that would have been the right thing to do at the time.”

Asked if he would maintain the same level of aggression in his racing, Lawson added: “That won’t change, yeah. That attitude towards racing and how I approach races in Formula 1 won’t change.

“That’s how I’ll always be, but at the same time there’s things in there if I make mistakes I’ll always learn from them. And clearly in Mexico I made a mistake and I’ll learn from it.”

Perez was attempting to pass Lawson for position when the pair collided. The Red Bull driver was squeezed to the inside of Turn 4 and then both ran deep into the corner, with Lawson ending up off the circuit.

Lawson rejoined ahead of Turn 5, which is where the two cars collided, and admitted he could have skipped the inside of the corner to avoid contact.

“Looking back, maybe there were things I could have done differently, I could have cut the chicane and avoided it completely,” he said. “But in the moment I’m racing as well, you have a split second to make this decision.

“So it’s something I’ve spoken to the team about afterwards and I’ve reflected on and I’ll learn from going into this weekend.”

Lawson said he spoke with Perez after the race and apologised for gesturing at the Red Bull driver with his middle finger.

“Briefly we spoke after the race but at the same time we left the track very early immediately afterwards anyway. So I think it was an on-track fight and I apologised for what I did after the incident.

“But in terms of the fight we had on track, it was deemed as a racing incident and something that was an in the moment battle.”