Liam Lawson was frustrated after lapping 0.365 seconds off team-mate Max Verstappen in sprint qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix. That gap is revealing, because with just one free practice session and a day in the simulator under his belt, he looks far more comfortable in the Red Bull than he did during his troubled two-event stint with the team last year. Even a margin well under half the deficit of his best qualifying outing alongside Verstappen in 2024 did not do his underlying pace justice.
Lawson's elimination in SQ2 left him 11th on the grid for the sprint race. It was disappointing because it did not match what had come before. After his second quick lap in that session, he said over the radio, "I've no idea what happened in Q2". He had no clearer explanation after getting out of the car.
"Honestly, I don't really know," said Lawson of what went wrong in SQ2. "It's been an interesting day, but normally you'd improve through quali and we started SQ1 quite strong and then we didn't make the same step that everybody else did. Obviously we'll look into it, there's a lot to learn today, but so far I feel quite good in the car. I was honestly feeling OK through quali, I thought we'd get through, so it's a shame."
Feeling "OK" in the car is what matters. Watching him trackside in free practice at the banked Turn 3, he looked relatively at ease. He was a little more conservative than Verstappen in how he attacked the corner, as you would expect, but he at least looked on top of the machinery. The main concern was that two of his quick laps at the end of the session saw him run wide and drag the floor of the car across the exit kerb.
The last time he was watched up close in a Red Bull was in China last year, on what proved to be his final outing until now for the team. There he was tentative, taking a trip through the gravel on his first push lap and never getting to grips with it. Here he looked nothing like that. He was not at Verstappen's level today, inevitably, but in the circumstances it was a good start.
The same applies to the first part of qualifying. His first of three push laps was slow, but that was down to traffic. His final two efforts were much more convincing, allowing him to end the first segment of qualifying 0.165 seconds ahead of Verstappen in sixth place.
That raised expectations for the second segment, as even on a day when Red Bull was struggling Lawson appeared to have the pace to make the top 10. To miss out, and only be a few thousandths ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, who took over his usual car, was understandably a blow.
Moving with the evolving track is one of the skills of qualifying, but it is excusable not to have mastered it when a driver is unfamiliar with the car. There was a reminder of that at the end of the first segment, when he returned to the garage and referenced what Racing Bulls normally does with the front wing flap angle. He reported he was happy with the balance, and it is not clear what direction Red Bull went in because the radio feed fell silent to the outside world. But understanding how a car might react to adding a little more front wing as the track grip improves is something that comes with experience of the machinery. Given Lawson lacks that, the way today played out bodes well for the rest of the weekend.
"It definitely does," said Lawson. "We'll obviously try and fix it and put it together for quali. But we definitely had the potential to be right up there today, so it's frustrating."
What matters is that this was, all things considered, a good start for Lawson. And that is much better than what happened last year.
Source: www.the-race.com — Read the original article
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