Red Bull junior Lawson rages over lost DTM title

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Liam Lawson drinking from a Red Bull can. Germany October 2021

Liam Lawson drinking from a Red Bull can. Germany October 2021

Liam Lawson has called Kelvin van der Linde the “dirtiest” driver he’s raced against after a collision between them lost him the DTM title.

The Red Bull junior driver headed into the final race of the campaign as the big favourite to win the championship, leading Maximilian Götz by a total of 18 points.

However, the German Mercedes driver was ultimately able to overturn that deficit, winning on home turf while the 19-year-old could only finish in P18 after being hit by Van der Linde at the start.

Lawson was furious with the South African and, speaking to the press at the end of the weekend, didn’t try to hide it.

“Obviously, it ruined out race from there, so pretty gutted,” he said as per Autosport.

“I’m just disappointed for the whole team, they really deserved this [title], they worked so hard this year. Every weekend I’ve given the absolute maximum, I really wanted to repay them with the title.

“We were right there with pole position, the car was really good and I had another good start. But sometimes you just can’t prevent the same idiots from doing the same thing.”

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It wasn’t the first time in the final round that Lawson had been hit by Van der Linde either.

In the first of the two races that weekend, he had started from pole but had to settle for P3 in the end after being hit by the driver in a very similar incident.

He says can’t believe the South African didn’t learn his lesson after the first coming together and think he’s the dirtiest driver he’s ever come up against.

“I am of course very disappointed,” he added.

“I am immensely sorry for my whole team. They deserved that. When you get pushed off by the same guy over and over again. That’s honestly the dirtiest guy I’ve ever raced against. He never seems to learn.

“To not make through Turn 1 cleanly on both days, to get taken out by the same driver both days is very very frustrating and I would have thought the guy would learn but maybe he never learns.”