10/08/2025 20:00
Liam Lawson has revealed that qualifying is his current F1
weakness, and the area he wants to improve in the remainder of the
season to do an overall "better job". The New Zealander has scored
points in four of the past seven races, with Q3 having been reached
on each of those occasions where a top 10 finish was claimed. When
the Racing Bulls driver has not made the final part of qualifying,
he has failed to recover the positions in the race to secure the
Faenza-based outfit points. Overall, 20 points have been scored by
Lawson, compared to Isack Hadjar's 22, whilst the French-Algerian
has also made four more Q3 appearances in his rookie campaign.
Progressing to the final part of qualifying has proved to be
crucial this campaign, due to how close the midfield has been.
With so little splitting the midfield outfits, making places in a
grand prix has proven to be difficult as a result of the minimal
pace advantage. It has heightened the importance of Q3, with
Lawson aware that he must consistently qualify better to boost his
chances of scoring points. Asked where he would like to improve,
Lawson told media: "If I was to just pick an area, overall, it's
qualifying. "With how important it is at the moment because
everybody's very close, even on tracks that are maybe easier to
overtake, it's still difficult because you don't have a three,
four, five-tenth pace advantage. "You have like a one or two-tenth
pace advantage, and that's very hard to overtake. Qualifying is
very important, it sets up your weekend. Where our weekends have
fallen away, at least on my side, has been normally in an average
qualifying. "Where our weekends have been strong, it's when we
qualify well. That's the main target: just extracting everything,
making sure we have the car in the best place going into
qualifying, and then for me getting everything out of it and doing
a better job."
