Lawson: Losing Monaco F2 win “a tough one to swallow”

The Hitech Grand Prix driver produced a faultless drive, including a stunning pass on Oscar Piastri for the lead, to win race two in tricky damp but drying conditions on Saturday.

However, barely an hour after celebrating a victory on his Monaco debut, the achievement was take away as stewards disqualified the New Zealander from the race for using a prohibited throttle map at the start.

Briton’s Dan Ticktum inherited the win from Piastri and Lawson’s team-mate Juri Vips.

The penalty seemed harsh given Lawson appeared to gain no advantage from the throttle map and in fact lost a position on the start to Piastri.

Reflecting immediately after the race, Lawson wrote on Instagram: “I have no words right now…. We have been disqualified due to selecting the wrong throttle map off the start. Winning in Monaco is something I dreamed of so this is a tough one to swallow.”

Several drivers responded to the post including Haas Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin, who wrote “Man you did a cracking job. Don’t let it bring you down.”

Supercars ace David Reynolds also thought Lawson had been hard done by, posting “Feel for ya ace you got ripped off. Killer race, unbelievably fast.”

Reflecting on the disqualification after yesterday’s feature race, where Lawson climbed from 12th to seventh, the Kiwi admitted he had breached a black and white rule, but was nonetheless still gutted to lose the win.

“The last couple of laps were really good, and it was an incredible feeling to cross the line first in Monaco,” he said.

“So it's a proper shame, the result, really gutting. It's just a black and white rule,”

“In fact the knob being set in the wrong position gave me a terrible start and that is why I lost the lead off the line.

“But that's the rule. Such a shame, Monaco, of all the places this is the last place I would wish it to happen.”

Several of Lawson’s F2 rivals came out in support of the driver admitting that he deserved the win.

Piastri even declared that he is against the throttle map rule stating that it shouldn’t exist in the category anymore.

“It is obviously very unfortunate for Liam to lose a victory like that,” said Piastri, when asked by Motorsport.com for his thoughts on Lawson’s disqualification.

“I think being in a better throttle map didn’t help him anyway.

“I wouldn’t really say he gained any advantage, and to be honest I don’t fully agree with the rule of having to use that mandatory throttle map because nowadays we are having much less issues with stalling the car on the grid.

“That is just my take but the rules are the rules, everyone has to abide by it. It is harsh but the rules are there. It cannot go any other way.”

Feature race winner Theo Pourchaire agreed that Lawson deserved the win but reiterated that rules need to be respected.

“There is a rule. You have to respect the rule, it is for everyone the same,” said Pourchaire.

“You just have to turn a button in the right way for sure he did the job, he won the race he was the fastest guy on track and he deserved the win, but there is some rules and you have to respect them.”

Lawson would have left Monaco third in the championship standings had the victory stood but instead finds himself fifth, 32 points adrift of leader Guanyu Zhou.