Liam Lawson will start the final race of the 2025 Formula One season in 13th, after missing out on a place in the top 10 for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
After his future was confirmed this week, with confirmation Lawson will remain with Racing Bulls, the Kiwi was just 0.043s away from advancing to the final qualifying session (Q3).
“It’s frustrating,” said Lawson post-qualifying. “We had a very quick car, and I think we played it a bit too conservative.
“We took three sets [of tyres] in Q1, which we didn’t need to do. It’s hurt us, we missed Q3 by such a small margin.
“But it’s something we’ll learn from, and I’ll learn from heading into next year.
“We knew it was going to be tight. We were concerned a bit, but after missing FP1 yesterday, a lot of our data was from FP2, which was the first session in the car for me.
“Maybe we just over-reacted a little bit, the first part of quali we were comfortably through Q1, and then just missed Q3.”
Ironically, that final place in Q3 went to Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, who Lawson beat to secure the final seat on the 2026 grid. Tsunoda was fortunate to reach Q3, after he appeared to exceed track limits at the end of Q2.
Starting 13th is one place back from the 12th Lawson qualified with in Abu Dhabi last year, where he failed to finish after his brakes gave out in the dying stages, after an earlier pit stop mistake by his Racing Bulls crew had ruined his race.
Regardless, Lawson will hope to repeat his display from Qatar last week, where he started 12th but finished in the points after a professional drive.
In the battle for the world title, Max Verstappen did everything he could to claim pole position, with a best lap of 1m 22.207s.
McLaren’s Lando Norris is one place and 0.201s back, and in line to pip Verstappen to the title by starting second. Norris holds a 12-point advantage over Verstappen, and needs to only finish on the podium to end Red Bull’s run of four straight drivers’ titles.
Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri took third, trailing Norris by 16 points and Verstappen by four heading into the final race.
Lawson’s Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar starts ninth, while Tsunoda was not able to set a time in Q3, after using his car to give Verstappen an aerodynamic tow.
Despite being one of the first drivers out on track in Q1, Lawson was unable to post a lap time in his opening stint, after being impeded at turn 14, and was forced to return to the pits.
When he was able to record his opening mark, Lawson set his best effort of the weekend so far, 1m 23.444s, to move fourth - albeit with plenty of drivers still to record their first times.
By the time that had happened, Lawson had fallen to eighth, albeit just 0.232s clear of elimination. With less than four minutes remaining, Lawson returned to the track and improved to 1m 23.265s to move into the top 10 and reach Q2 with 0.129s to spare as he dropped down to 10th.
Into the second session, Lawson’s first effort of Q2 couldn’t better his last time from Q1, as the Kiwi set a 1m 23.553s to sit bottom of the standings after the first runs, 0.279s shy of progressing.
And despite Lawson putting in his best time of the weekend, 1m 23.077s, the Kiwi wasn’t able to progress into Q3 and was eliminated.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix begins at 2am Monday (NZT).
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.