{"id":407426,"date":"2026-05-01T22:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407426\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:43:09","slug":"formula-1-liam-lawson-struggles-in-miami-sprint-qualifying-to-start-17th-as-season-resumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407426\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1: Liam Lawson struggles in Miami sprint qualifying, to start 17th as season resumes"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the championship returning after a five-week absence<\/a> caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix thanks to the Iran war<\/a>, 10 of the 11 teams have arrived in Miami with upgrades to their cars.<\/p>\n

World champion Lando Norris <\/a>has appeared to gain the most from McLaren\u2019s seven upgrades, and took his first pole position of the season with a best lap of 1m 27.869s. <\/p>\n

Current world championship leader Kimi Antonelli was 0.222s back in second, as Mercedes\u2019 streak of starting on pole in every race this year was broken by McLaren.<\/p>\n

Norris\u2019 McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri was third, 0.239s back, while Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc completed the second row in fourth, 0.370s off Norris.<\/p>\n

Mercedes, though, are expecting upgrades for the Canadian Grand Prix later this month.<\/p>\n

But having been among the midfield contenders earlier in the season, Racing Bulls will worry they\u2019ve lost any advantages they might have had over rivals Williams, Alpine, Audi and Haas.<\/p>\n

Lawson\u2019s Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad will start one place higher, after appearing to have issues with his car in SQ2. <\/p>\n

In last year\u2019s Miami sprint, Lawson qualified 14th and crossed the line seventh in wet conditions, only to be stripped of the result<\/a> after a penalty for forcing Fernando Alonso into the barriers at turn 12 relegated him to 13th.<\/p>\n

Taking to the track in the opening session, Lawson\u2019s first lap was compromised by a yellow flag when Aston Martin\u2019s Lance Stroll ran wide at turn 16. <\/p>\n

Lawson\u2019s woes were compounded when he ran too deep into turn one, locked up his front wheel, and effectively wiped out a set of medium tyres, and left himself with one chance to advance into the second session.<\/p>\n

With just over three minutes left on the clock, Lawson returned to the track, and was able to post his first time, 1m 31.043s. However the lack of opportunity to improve led to him being overtaken, and he was the final car to be eliminated in the first session, 0.055s back from Albon and 0.171s off his teammate. <\/p>\n

Miami\u2019s sprint race begins at 4am on Sunday (NZT), before grand prix qualifying at 8am.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Lawson logged a trouble-free 41 laps in the weekend\u2019s only practice session – extended by 30 minutes for teams and drivers to come to terms with their car upgrades after the five-week break. No driver completed more laps in the session than Lawson.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi\u2019s best lap of 1m 31.648s was 2.338s back from Leclerc\u2019s session-topping time, 1m 29.310s, and he recorded the 17th-fastest time of the session.<\/p>\n

Lawson being so far down the leaderboard came with mitigation, after he did not run a set of soft tyres, the fastest compound, with his best effort instead coming on mediums.<\/p>\n

Neither Racing Bulls cars ran softs, as Lindblad finished 21st, 1.214s back from his teammate. <\/p>\n

Miami sprint race starting grid<\/p>\n

Lando Norris – McLarenKimi Antonelli – MercedesOscar Piastri – McLarenCharles Leclerc – FerrariMax Verstappen – Red BullGeorge Russell – MercedesLewis Hamilton – FerrariFranco Colapinto – AlpineIsack Hadjar – Red BullPierre Gasly – AlpineGabriel Bortoleto – AudiNico Hulkenberg – AudiOllie Bearman – HaasAlex Albon – WilliamsCarlos Sainz – WilliamsArvid Lindblad – Racing BullsLiam Lawson – Racing BullsEsteban Ocon – HaasSergio Perez – CadillacValtteri Bottas- CadillacFernando Alonso – Aston MartinLance Stroll – Aston Martin<\/p>\n

Alex Powell<\/a> is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the championship returning after a five-week absence caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[209687,53396,33039,74,806,682,176515,29188,78,47525,20409,41944,111,139,69,48211,10521,45434,7798,27793,6926,213,87086,5433,4497,3258,61,1533],"class_list":["post-407426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-0055s","tag-53396","tag-17th","tag-after","tag-as","tag-being","tag-eliminated","tag-formula","tag-in","tag-lawson","tag-liam","tag-miami","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ones","tag-opening","tag-qualifying","tag-race","tag-resumes","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-sprint","tag-stage","tag-start","tag-struggles","tag-to","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407426","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=407426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}