Liam Lawson has achieved his best sprint qualifying result of the season, starting ninth at the British Grand Prix. The Racing Bulls driver narrowly missed the chance to equal his best sprint qualifying result, when he started eighth in Brazil two years ago.

What happened?

Lawson hadn’t reached SQ3 since the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix, when he started and finished in 10th. As the fastest driver outside of the sport’s top four teams – Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull – Lawson begins the British Grand Prix’s first sprint race just one place outside the points, with only the top eight awarded in the shortened format.

Why it matters for Liam Lawson

Lawson has one points finish in a sprint race this season, where he took seventh in China after he hung on with old tyres. On a track that he qualified 16th on last year, and was forced to retire after being taken out before the end of the first lap, Lawson’s best lap time of 1m 28.927s was 0.551s off the pace, but a huge 0.440s clear of his teammate Arvid Lindblad in 10th.

What comes next?

The 17-lap sprint race begins at 11pm on Saturday night (NZT), before grand prix qualifying at 3am on Sunday. Lawson and Lindblad starting next to each other does risk similar scenes from last week’s Austrian Grand Prix, where the British teenager appeared to ignore team orders to attack his teammate. On that occasion, Lawson was still able to finish clear of Lindblad.

Lawson improved his time to 1m 29.850s, and advanced into SQ2 with the eighth-fastest time, 0.577s off the pace set by Hamilton. After a short break, both Racing Bulls cars were delayed in returning to track for SQ2, and were only able to set one push lap. Lawson improved again to post a 1m 29.067s, and set the fastest time through the final sector, and marched into SQ3 with the fourth-best time – 0.415s clear of elimination.

Into SQ3 for just the third time in his career, and with eight minutes to set as fast a lap as possible, Racing Bulls again left both cars only one shot to post a competitive time, albeit on soft tyres. In his only chance, Lawson set his best time of the day, 1m 28.927s, but was unable to hit the same heights of SQ2 as other drivers improved behind him.

British Grand Prix sprint qualifying results

  • Lewis Hamilton
  • Kimi Antonelli
  • Max Verstappen
  • Charles Leclerc
  • George Russell
  • Lando Norris
  • Oscar Piastri
  • Isack Hadjar
  • Liam Lawson
  • Arvid Lindblad
  • Pierre Gasly
  • Gabriel Bortoleto
  • Nicol Hulkenberg
  • Franco Colapinto
  • Carlos Sainz
  • Alex Albon
  • Ollie Bearman
  • Esteban Ocon
  • Sergio Perez
  • Valtteri Bottas
  • Fernando Alonso
  • Lance Stroll