Liam Lawson is continuing a good run of form for both himself and Racing Bulls as he qualified P8 for the 2026 F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP on Sunday.
Since introducing an updated package in Montréal, the Faenza-based team have moved from the middle of the midfield to the front, or very close to it.
Having looked set for P11 or P12 on the basis of final practice as he lacked a couple of tenths to his teammate and the two Audis as they comfortably led the midfield battle, Lawson found over a second from his Q1 time to advance in 8th.
At the end of Q3, he was 0.115s quicker than Nico Hülkenberg. Thanks to the crash of Charles Leclerc, that became 8th on the grid.
It was a great recovery in the end as the Kiwi was down on laps thanks to his car issue in FP2. While pleased to be the lead midfield runner when talking in the print media pen, he also was disappointed that Arvid Lindblad did not join him in Q3 because of a deployment issue at the start of his last attempt in the middle segment.
Liam Lawson on great result in 2026 F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP qualifying session
“Yeah, no, it’s been good.
“It’s been a good weekend overall. We started very, very strong.
“To be honest, today wasn’t the easiest, and even through quali where we started, it wasn’t very comfortable.
“So we put it together right when it mattered, literally, the end of Q2, and it put us through to Q3.
“It’s very good [to be the fastest midfield runner]. We’re in a great place with the car. We just need to tidy up on a few little things.
“We should have had both cars really in Q3 today.
“It’s something that’s, yeah, it’s great. We’ve got good speed.
“Obviously, tomorrow’s race is going to be a lot harder than normal, I would say, with the tyre deg. So we need to try and do a good job there.”
Winning the used tyre battle in Q3
With the toughest part of the day completed for the two midfield drivers that got through, Liam Lawson and Nico Hülkenberg both went for used tyres for Q3 as the top four teams had a significant pace advantage in the 2026 F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP qualifying.
The 24-year-old lost almost a second to his Q2 run such is the degradation around this track on a used set. Nonetheless, he critically outpaced the Audi driver.
“Well, today we didn’t use a new tyre. We just went out on a used and hoped that Hülkenberg would do the same, and he did.
“So we just had a used-used battle, which we won. So we were, like, a second slower than our Q2 lap.
“But yeah, when we’re fighting, obviously, the top teams, which we’re not really fighting, it makes sense for us to do that.”
