Sprint Qualifying Struggles: Lawson Apologizes for Poor Performance

MELBOURNE, Australia (March 15, 2025) – Liam Lawson attributed his slowest qualifying time during Friday’s Sprint Qualifying to an inability to cool his tires, leaving him at the bottom of the grid with a P20 start for Saturday’s race.

The 18-year-old New Zealander struggled to manage his Red Bull RB21 after an underwhelming qualifying performance and subsequent retirement during the season opener in Australia. Lawson ended the qualifying session 0.558 seconds off the cutoff time needed to advance, which was secured by Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar.

“Mate, I’m really sorry,” Lawson expressed over the radio, apologizing to his engineer moments after his early exit. “Just the second lap, I went off. It’s obviously a shame.”

In recounting the incident, Lawson explained, “I think from a starting point it wasn’t too bad; the first lap was alright. We were just looking to build on there. But we stayed out to try to cool the tires on track, and to be honest, I really struggled to get the temps down starting the second lap.”

He continued, “Basically we started too hot, and then throughout the lap I just struggled. It’s frustrating. It’s obviously small things, and it’s really a shame because honestly, we started okay in Quali. The first lap wasn’t amazing, but it was relatively okay, so it’s just a shame to be out for something so sort of… yeah, frustrating.”

In the free practice session prior to qualifying, Lawson only managed an 18th place finish, while teammate Max Verstappen managed to secure a second place qualifying time behind Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen cleared up the track performance hurdles the team faced, but Lawson’s challenges remained evident.

“It’s tough for us; I missed a lot of soft tire prep during P3 and that impacted our qualifying,” Lawson noted. As Red Bull Racing prepares for Saturday’s Sprint, he emphasized the importance of recovering from the setback. “We missed a huge amount of running, but I need to do a better job; if I hadn’t gone off, we wouldn’t be in this situation. It’s not a good start, but we will have tomorrow to try and make something out of it.”

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton managed to clinch pole position after narrowly outpacing Verstappen by just 0.018 seconds. Hamilton expressed mixed feelings, acknowledging the challenges posed by difficult track conditions yet celebrating his strong performance.

“I mean, of course, when you look at it, it was 18 thousandths off of pole, but I don’t think we should have even been on the front row anyway, so I’m very happy to be second,” Verstappen said, reflecting on both his performance and the team’s direction going forward.

The team’s principal, Christian Horner, shared Lawson’s sentiments about the qualifying difficulties. “It’s a shame for Liam; he missed the whole of P3 due to a technical issue. He has never raced here before, putting him immediately on the back foot.”

As Lawson and the Red Bull Racing team prepare for Saturday’s Sprint, they face the daunting challenge of turning around their fortunes in pursuit of valuable points at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix.