Lawson struggles, qualifies 18th in Qatar

Laim Lawson has admitted he is struggling with his AlphaTauri F1 car after qualifying in 18th position for Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix. The Kiwi driver failed to move through to the second Qualifying session setting a time of 1:26.635.

“Today was tricky,” commented Lawson. “Since we hit the track in FP1, I’ve been struggling with the car, and I know everybody was with the way the track was.

“I think we narrowed down the issues we experienced in practice, but not enough, and we still have things to look into.

“The track was quite dusty in FP1, but it cleaned up a lot for qualifying and was a lot better. The final laps felt good, but I was struggling with the handling of the car.

“There are some corners we need to look into to find more time because I didn’t have the confidence to really push and put it on the limit, but with the different format this weekend, there are definitely opportunities.”

AlphaTauri team mate Yuki Tsunoda will start from 11th after setting a time of 1:25.301.

“As is typical for a Sprint event, it has been a very busy and challenging Friday with very difficult conditions on track.,” said Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer). “Gusts up to 45kph impacted the handling of the car but also brought a lot of sand onto the circuit and the track was very green at the start of FP1.

“In fact, the lap times improved by approximately 10 seconds from the start to the end of the session, and with these swings, the car balance was also changing. With the very low grip, the car had understeer, oversteer, and general sliding, so it was a case of giving the drivers as many laps as the time allowed to understand the main limitations.

“We improved the balance throughout FP1 but knew there was still more to do for qualifying. We had good run plans and executed Q1 well, but Liam didn’t have the consistent balance needed to progress through to Q2.

“At least with this format, he has another chance at the Sprint qualifying tomorrow. Yuki entered Q2 with two new sets of the soft compound and was able to improve on each run, but in the end, the last lap wasn’t quite enough to make it to Q3, missing out on a mere four milliseconds.

“It’s not the first time we have finished in P11 by such a small margin this season, but at least we start close to the points on Sunday. Understanding the tyres will be difficult for the race, so we will do all we can to maximise our opportunities. We now shift our focus to the Sprint qualifying preparations.”

Max Verstappen set a blistering lap to comfortably beat George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. With the qualifying for Sunday’s race all set the drivers will now turn their attentions to Saturday’s Sprint Shootout at 1600 local time.

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