Lawson secures best qualifying result of the season in P12

Securing his best qualifying result of the season, Liam Lawson earned a P12 start for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, as Racing Bulls sets its sights on a points finish in Jeddah.

Playing catch-up to start the opening stage of Qualifying, Racing Bulls dealt both drivers a difficult task when the team released Lawson and Isack Hadjar with just ten minutes remaining in Q1, however, the tyre-saving initiative proved successful as both cars cleared the bottom.

The relief was only temporary, however, when the second haul of attempts rolled in and the Kiwi was pushed into the elimination zone, leaving Lawson at risk as he returned to the pitlane.

With just a few minutes remaining in the session, the short-lived lull that had fallen over the circuit came to an end and the field rolled out for one final dash around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Lawson lit up his personal timesheet, going green as he flew across the high-speed street circuit, and with a complete time of 1:28.561s, the #30 just scraped through to Q2 by less than one-tenth.

“The work the team have done on the car has been very, very good,” Lawson said.

“I think we did everything we could and put ourselves in the greatest possible position for Qualifying.

“It’s obviously good to extract everything out the car and I did the best lap I’ve done all weekend, but unfortunately we were just shy of where we needed to be pace-wise.

“It’s tough when the midfield is super close.”

Lawson again took a risky approach to his run plan in Q2, not venturing out of the pitlane alongside the rest of his competitors and instead opting to set just one single push lap in the dying stages of the session. 

With three minutes on the clock and no room for error, the Kiwi joined the pack as they rolled out of the pitlane, completing a “pretty damn good lap” to temporarily move into the top ten.

It wasn’t meant to be, however, when his competitors followed suit and demoted his fastest time of 1:28.191s to leave Lawson in a bittersweet P12. 

Lining up from Row 6 on the grid will be the Kiwi’s highest start of the season, and he will notably start ahead of Isack Hadjar who qualified in P14.

“Every race I’m becoming more confident with the car,” he said. 

“We’ve come from a track in Bahrain which is super technical and then you come here and you’ve just got to commit as hard as you can. 

“It’s exciting to drive, it raises the heart rate, but obviously it bites hard as well which we’ve seen today. 

“I’ll try and create as many opportunities as possible tomorrow.”

Chief Technical Officer at Racing Bulls, Claudio Balestri is hopeful that the ‘opportunities’ his drivers make tomorrow will lead to a healthy haul of points in Saudi Arabia, aided by the eventful nature of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

“We were not fast enough to enter in the top ten with Liam just missing out by less than a tenth to get to Q3,” he said.

“Our attention now is focused on race preparation for tomorrow and our target is to get some points in the race, we know it’s an eventful one!”

Lawson will line up alongside Alex Albon, with Fernando Alonso hunting the rookie down as the field gets set to launch into Turn 1.

Lights out for an exciting Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will take place bright and early at 03:00 AEST.

Image: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool.

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