Liam Lawson landed a cheeky swipe on the horned snow and horned hoping that he would be hoping for the Red Bull drivers to be faster at the Grand Prix in Azerbaijan.
The Racing Bulls drivers impressively held back Tsunoda’s Red Bull, claiming his best F1 results in fifth place at Baku, and third on the grid with a great lap in qualifying.
Lawson produced a defensive masterclass to maintain car gags including horned thorns during the closure stage, despite not having a drs.
“Indeed, the (horned) was on a set of fresh tires, medium, grippy tires, and honestly, I was preparing him to catch me faster.
“Obviously, when you look at Max today, they raced great and the cars look good.
“So when I saw him come out with better tires, I think I was hoping he would catch me faster. But I think our sector 3 is very strong this weekend.
Lawson’s teammate Isaac Hajar finished 10th as the Racing Bulls celebrated their double point finish.
As a result, Red Bull’s sister team will overtake Aston Martin and move to sixth in the Constructors Championship.
Liam Lawson
Tsunoda claims he was held back.
Explaining his side of the fight, Tsunoda, who has secured his best results since replacing former teammate Lawson with Red Bull earlier this season, admitted that he may have been held back and worked hard on the offense.
“I was thinking about the championship, especially behind (a) McLaren, both the championships for both the team and the driver,” Tsunoda said.
“We had a lot of opportunities where we could probably get inside and attack Liam, but there’s a lot more risk than McLaren might overtake both of us,” he said.
“So I don’t want to have it as a Red Bull (driver), and I think I made the right decision (by doing so), but at the same time I didn’t have enough pace to pass comfortably either.”
Both drivers are fighting for the future and the tsunami has not put any pressure on him to maintain his Red Bull seat in 2026, but Lawson aims to be held by the Race Bulls.
Lawson is 13th in the drivers championship with 30 points, while Tsunoda is 17th and has 10 points less.
Baku marks the first time since the 2020 Russian Grand Prix, all four Red Bullback drivers have finished in the top 10 in the same race.