behind Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cHonestly it felt like hours. I needed to pee since like lap two of quali, so that\u2019s never nice,\u201d Lawson admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously very good quali for us today. It\u2019s just surviving, honestly, the first two sessions. Maximizing every lap on track.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Racing Bulls driver, who returned to the Faenza-based team earlier this year after being demoted from Red Bull, explained that keeping focus amid changing conditions was crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest thing is when it starts raining and you see it on your visor and the gloss starting on the track. Everything\u2019s telling you there\u2019s going to be less grip, but then it\u2019s not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t maximize the first lap in Q3 and Carlos did. On the last lap I just ignored all of it and carried on, and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawson\u2019s P3 is the highest starting position for a New Zealander in F1 since Chris Amon at the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix and only the sixth top-three start in the team\u2019s 40-year history, as well as their first since Yuki Tsunoda\u2019s P3 at last year\u2019s Sao Paulo Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
It also continued an upturn in form for Lawson, who initially struggled against rookie teammate Isack Hadjar after being demoted to Racing Bulls following the Chinese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Since scoring his first points of the season in Monaco, Lawson has finished in the points three more times and now sits 15th in the championship on 20 points, eight ahead of Tsunoda who replaced him at Red Bull.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe car\u2019s been good all weekend. Massive thanks to the guys and girls. The team\u2019s been amazing this weekend so far, but obviously tomorrow is the important day,\u201d Lawson said, looking ahead to Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
He admitted the podium would be a challenge but remained confident in his approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d love to fight for the podium,\u201d he added. \u201cThe car\u2019s been very, very good recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we know there\u2019s very quick guys coming from behind us. It\u2019s going to be a tough race.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s anything like today with these conditions, then anything\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix begins at 3pm local time on Sunday (11pm AEST).<\/p>\n
Verstappen takes wild Baku pole, Lawson stuns with P3 as Piastri crashes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson celebrates his third place in qualifying in Azerbaijan. Image: XPB Images In a session stretched to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32795,42,5704,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-35084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-azerbaijan-gp","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-liam-lawson","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Lawson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/XPB_1373984_HiRes.jpg\")