Liam Lawson has qualified 13th for the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix while Visa Cash App Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar will start from ninth.
“With the track temperature swinging between afternoon and evening sessions, it’s always difficult here to optimise the cars, assess the performance and relative competitiveness in Free Practice 3,” commented Head of Vehicle Performance Guillaume Dezoteux. “Qualifying was extremely tight, once again. Both cars got through Q1 but the gaps were small, and perfect execution was required to progress in the session.
“In Q2, we had all 15 cars within 367 milliseconds! Isack went through after a great second lap in new tyres, while Liam got knocked out by less than half a tenth. Finally, in Q3, Isack secured P9 on the grid, extracting everything from the car and the tyres. Our cars are in a good position for the race but our direct competitors are there too.
“Tomorrow, the tyre management will be key. It’s a long race and we will give everything to finish in the points.”
“The car felt quick during Quali, so it’s frustrating to be out in Q2,” said Lawson. “We ended up playing things too conservatively today by using three sets of tyres in Q1, which we didn’t need to do. It meant we only had one new set for Q2, resulting in us missing out on Q3 by a small margin.
“After missing FP1 yesterday, a lot of our data was taken from FP2, which was the first session in the car for me. In hindsight, we were over cautious, so it’s something we’ll learn from going into next year.”
Constructors’ Championship rivals Aston Martin Racing’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will start from sixth and 15th. Max Verstappen is on pole ahead of title rivals Lando Norris in second and Oscar Piastri in third.
Comments