Despite the departure of Lord High Executioner, Helmut Marko, the Red Bull junior team appears to be as heartless and insensitive as ever.

Yes, we understand that Racing Bulls is there to 'discover' and nurture talent for the big team, but at what cost?

Despite qualifying fifth on Saturday, Liam Lawson remained the subject of paddock speculation, one rumour doing the rounds being that he would be dropped by the Faenza outfit but had secured a new berth at Williams, relacing Alex Albon, a rumour the Grove outfit was quick to deny.

Indeed, the insensitivity of Racing Bulls is matched only by that of certain quarters of the media which appears to relish such situations.

Promoted to third on the grid as a result of the penalties incurred by rivals, Lawson made good use of his position to nail Lando Norris in the Senna Esses, settling into second behind race leader Kimi Antonelli.

Struggling - more than most - on the Inters, he was running sixth when the pit stops got underway. He held the position until he was passed by George Russell and subsequently Charles Leclerc, the RB unsurprisingly no match for the Mercedes or Ferrari.

Passed in the final phase of the race by Oscar Piastri, having undercut Leclerc, Lawson fought a hard fight with the Monegasque in a bid to retain seventh. In the end the Ferrari driver got the better of him in a thrilling scrap, but was penalised post-race for causing a collision with the RB, thereby promoting Lawson back to seventh.

"Crazy race," he laughed. "Honestly, I had a really good start, good grip in Turn 1," he added. "Obviously I made up a place, and then to be honest, I was thinking I might try and attack Kimi at some point in the lap.

"But once the pace stabilised, they're a lot quicker than us, and we started to pull back. We were damaging our tyres, I think, quite a lot more than them. And then I think the pace on the dry was okay."

The kiwi, like several other drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, was suffering from graining.

"The problem is that you never know whether to push through the graining and try and wear it all off, or to try and look after the tyre and stop the graining," he explained. "And when it's dry like this, you can't really do much.

"For us, the graining started halfway through Lap 1, honestly. And I think for us, we were never really going to be able to keep those cars there anyway. So I'll go and review it, and see if there's something else I could have done."

Asked about the battle with Leclerc, he said: I tried to keep Charles there. We had some contact in 12, I'll go and review it. I don't really know exactly what to say yet, but obviously I ended up losing the place.

"I think it was his wing that hit my tyre," he continued, "so I think we got really lucky. I feel like it was exactly like his GP2 move in Abu Dhabi, on Albon years ago. He did the same kind of thing, so maybe it's his specialty. I don't know if it's legal or not! We'll obviously go and review it, but it was a good battle overall.

"I feel like we maximised today," he said. "I had a had a strong race. I would have liked it to stay wet the whole race. It would have been cool. I probably would have had more of a shot there. But at the moment, we're topping the midfield as a team, and that's what we're targeting every weekend."

Asked about 2027, and the fact that his team is currently humming and hawing over himself, Arvid Lindblad and Nikola Tsolov, he said: "I appreciate all the support I've seen over the last few weeks. It's honestly really nice to see.

"Obviously, I would love it if it was more from a team," he joked. "But at the moment, I'm just trying to enjoy driving the car because with everything else going on, I don't really know what else I'm meant to do.

"I don't know what else I'm meant to say. I'm just going to keep driving and see what happens. I feel like Alan's been extremely supportive to me, and I appreciate that a lot, and I have enjoyed working closely with them and with the team this year. But obviously it's a big organisation."

Meanwhile, he is kept dangling, and it would take a heart of stone not to see the obvious hurt as, despite not telling him what his future might be, his team uses him pointless, embarrassing media stunts.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Interlagos here.