Liam Lawson at Austin's Circuit of the Americas. Photo / Red Bull
Liam Lawson will start 12th in Formula One’s US Grand Prix in Austin, after missing out on a top-10 place by just 0.122s.
For the second time in as many days, Lawson’s final qualifying effort was deleted for exceeding track limits, having qualified 15th for Sunday morning’s sprint race.
“We had a very fast car, we just got hit by a massive gust of wind at the start of the lap,” Lawson said post-qualifying. “From there, you’re trying to make up lap time. It sucks.
“The car is very, very quick. Unfortunately we’re all dealing with it at different points, it’s cost us quite a lot of lap time.”
Regardless, Lawson was still the second-best of the Red Bull-backed cars, as Yuki Tsunoda could only set the 13th-best time, while Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar hit the wall.
Were it not for Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll being handed a five-place grid penalty for causing a crash in the sprint race, Hadjar would be starting last, but will instead line up 19th.
Starting outside the top 10 will allow Lawson and Racing Bulls the chance to replicate the same strategy used last year, when the Kiwi started 19th on hard tyres and went long in his first stint before finishing on mediums to come home ninth.
Lawson had been impressive in the first qualifying session (Q1) by setting the fifth-best time, however he couldn’t improve after posting the 12th-best effort in the second (Q2), before his final attempt was wiped.
As a sign of the pressure on Red Bull’s drivers, Q2 also saw Tsunoda accuse Lawson of deliberately slowing in front of him to sabotage his chances of bettering his time, before he also missed out on the top 10.
“I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about,” Lawson said in response.
“Traffic is always tough around here. This weekend it’s been something that we’ve all been dealing with.
“We got hit really bad yesterday in sector one. I can’t possibly think where I could have been in front of him.
“It’s just one of those things.”
Despite missing the chance to set a final qualifying time, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen’s lap of 1m 32.510s was enough for pole position, giving him another chance to eat into the world championship lead, currently held by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Verstappen’s pole is his second of the weekend, after starting first in the sprint race as well.
After sealing the constructors championship in Singapore earlier this month, the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will start second and sixth respectively, as Verstappen eyes a late charge at a fifth straight championship.
Piastri holds a 22-point lead over Norris and a 55-point advantage over Verstappen.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start third, while Singapore winner George Russell of Mercedes joins him on the second row in fourth.
Returning to the track after taking ninth in the sprint race earlier on Sunday, Lawson’s first attempt at setting a lap was ended when teammate Hadjar crashed at turn six to trigger a red flag.
And after a delay of just over 10 minutes, Lawson was able to set his first flying lap and temporarily went top of the standings with an effort of 1m 34.212s – faster than the 1m 34.603s he set in sprint qualifying 24 hours earlier.
By the time the 19 remaining drivers had set their first times, Lawson was 11th and 0.328s clear of elimination.
In the final minutes of Q1, Lawson’s second flying lap saw him fall into the drop zone, but he improved his time to 1m 33.549s and advanced into Q2 with the fifth-best time of the session, just 0.342s off Verstappen.
Looking to seal a top-10 start, Lawson’s first flying lap in Q2 was another improvement at 1m 33.360s but he again fell into the drop zone once all the drivers had posted their first times.
Sitting outside the top 10 as he returned for his final lap in Q2, Lawson wasn’t able to improve and ran wide to see his time deleted again, eventually setting 1m 33.748s to miss out on the top 10.
The US Grand Prix begins at 8am on Monday morning (NZT).
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.