Liam Lawson accuses rival of sabotaging Qatar qualifying run

By Alex Powell

Liam Lawson will start Monday’s Qatar Grand Prix in 17th, after being eliminated in the first qualifying session at the Losail Circuit.

In his bid to impress Red Bull and earn a place alongside newly-crowned world champion Max Verstappen in 2025, Lawson’s hopes took a hit on Sunday (NZ time), as he was unable to progress through the first run.

The Kiwi’s best time of 1m 22.411s was 1.170 seconds slower than teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who took the final spot in the second qualifying session with a mark of 1m 22.364s.

After being eliminated, Lawson exception to Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who he alleged deliberately slowed down on track to affect other drivers behind him. Stroll himself will start 15th, after finishing bottom of the second qualifying session.

“[Stroll] purposefully slowed up through [turn] nine and ten when he aborted his lap,” Lawson told his team over radio.

“It just sucks man.”

Lawson’s RB teammate Tsunoda was eliminated in the second session, and will start 14th on the grid, while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez joined Verstappen in the third and final qualifying run for eighth on the grid.

Verstappen himself was able to take a Grand Prix pole for the first time since doing so in Austria at the start of July. Mercedes’ George Russell protested Verstappen’s pole position, after he too accused his rival of slowing on track.

Russell will start second on the grid, a week after winning in Las Vegas, while McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lock out the second row in third and fourth, as they close in on the constructors championship ahead of Ferrari.

Piastri led Norris in a McLaren one-two finish in the sprint race earlier on Sunday.

In better news for the Kiwi, though, he was able to outqualify Williams’ Franco Colapinto (19th), who is also understood to be in the running for Red Bull in 2025, provided the now-former world champions can buy him out of his current reserve role.

The three Red Bull drivers as well as Colapinto are all vying for the seat next to Verstappen next year, given Perez’s poor form through the back half of the 2024 season.

With two Grands Prix remaining in 2024, Perez trails his teammate by 252 points, the largest gap by far between any two teammates on the grid.

What’s more, Perez’s form has all but guaranteed Red Bull will finish third in the constructors championship, and cost his team tens of millions of dollars as a result.

Earlier, Lawson was unable to turn an impressive qualifying run into points on the shorter, 19-lap, sprint race.

On Saturday, the Kiwi beat Perez, Tsunoda and Colapinto to start 10th, but couldn’t hold on to challenge the top eight for points.

The first lap saw Lawson drop from 10th to 16th, which was where the Kiwi would eventually cross the line without any major incident.

“The first lap was a bit of a disaster,” said Lawson post-race. “I don’t really know why, we just had really low grip through the first part of the lap.

“That pretty much killed our race.”

In a boost to Lawson, though, he still managed to beat his fellow contenders Tsunoda (17th), Colapinto (18th) and Perez (20th).

The Qatar Grand Prix starts at 5am on Monday.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission