Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a> was jam-packed with chaos. The hour-long session stretched out to two hours as six red flags punctuated the high-speed action.<\/p>\nCool temperatures, gusty winds, smatterings of rain, different tyre compounds, and the narrow nature of Baku itself saw one driver after another caught out by mistakes \u2014 either their own, or the mistakes of others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a good session. It\u2019s been a good weekend so far; it\u2019s been very tricky, though,\u201d Lawson admitted in the post-qualifying FIA press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that quali was one of the toughest ones we\u2019ve probably experienced \u2014 trying to keep putting out laps, especially when the rain\u2019s coming down. And the amount of red flags that there were as well, it was definitely a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the car\u2019s been good, honestly, all weekend. We\u2019ve just been fine-tuning, and I think it was in the right place.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when a session\u2019s like that, honestly, it\u2019s more down to just putting a lap together and making sure that you have good track position and don\u2019t get caught out by these red flags.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was exactly what Lawson did, particularly in Q3. The already-short session was chopped up thanks to two red flag periods. Liam Lawson was one of three drivers who was able to set a flying lap in between those two red flags, which left him second in the standings for quite some time. Then, come the end of the session, the Kiwi driver was third.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a major difference when compared to the trials of Monza, and Lawson admitted that that\u2019s due to a major change in the team\u2019s approach to the session.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we fuelled for the session, did the whole session, and just kept driving around!\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a mistake in Monza and took a bit of a risk, but we knew the car was fast. But just with how close it is this year you can still be fast and have something happen and get knocked out.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo today, with everything that was going on and the conditions, we played it a bit safer and we maximised laps on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably completed three or four laps but spent the entire qualifying \u2014 when it was green \u2014 pretty much on the track. So obviously for today, it worked for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the mindset it takes to tackle a qualifying session like this one, Lawson replied, \u201cYou have to push the limits, and sometimes if you push a little bit harder, you can get rewarded. But obviously it\u2019s very easy to crash here as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo through quali, you\u2019re managing it, trying to drive good laps, keep everything together and learn as much as you can with the wind and everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, with how much it\u2019s changing, you start a new lap and it\u2019s completely new, the feeling of the car, different corners \u2014 and it can be really confusing. Especially over such a long lap, it\u2019s very challenging for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to the race itself, the Kiwi driver has admitted that it\u2019s tough to know exactly what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we\u2019d love to stay where we are, but we\u2019re aware of the guys that we\u2019re racing as well, and we know that there\u2019s some quicker guys behind us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll try and obviously have a good start, that\u2019s the first thing. I think our long-run pace was okay, but honestly, when the conditions are as windy as they were today, it changes everything. So, yeah, let\u2019s see tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baku is a track that does encourage overtaking, so Lawson will have his work cut out for him. But if qualifying showed us anything, it\u2019s that anything is possible in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
Read next: Azerbaijan GP: Verstappen on pole as Baku sets red flag record in disaster for Piastri, Ferrar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson\u2019s most recent qualifying performance at the Italian Grand Prix left a lot to be desired, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,54428,817,813,816,818,3352,44,9107,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-157827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-azerbaijan-grand-prix","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-liam-lawson","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-racing-bulls","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}