{"id":407480,"date":"2026-05-01T23:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407480\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T23:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:25:10","slug":"lawson-suffers-early-exit-in-miami-sprint-qualifying-norris-on-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/407480\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawson suffers early exit in Miami sprint qualifying, Norris on pole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiwi Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson<\/a> suffered an early elimination from sprint qualifying in Miami and will start tomorrow’s sprint race from 17th on the grid. <\/p>\n

The Racing Bulls driver posted a fastest lap time of 1m 31.043s during the first round of sprint qualifying (SQ1), initially fast enough to advance through to SQ2 in 16th.<\/p>\n

He was pipped by Williams’ Alex Albon during the final moments of the session, dropping him to 17th and ending his sprint qualifying hopes early. <\/p>\n

Lawson could be heard frustrated and swearing over the radio to his race engineer after his exit, saying, “My braking is really bad”. <\/p>\n

“I can’t brake for any of the f***ing corners. I’m braking so early,” Lawson said. <\/p>\n

Speaking to media after qualifying, Lawson described his result as “a series of bad events”. <\/p>\n

“We were a little bit misplaced on the garage exit and ended up a lot further back on track, and didn’t have a very good outlap,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I think the car has actually improved from this morning, so it’s a shame.” <\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Liam Lawson of New Zealand and driver of the (30) Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One Team race car (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Reigning world champion Lando Norris of McLaren secured pole position for tomorrow’s sprint race, clocking a fastest lap time of 1m 27.869s during SQ3. <\/p>\n

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, who secured sprint pole last year around the Miami International Autodrome, will line up second on the grid, followed by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in third. <\/p>\n

Lawson’s rookie teammate, Arvid Lindblad, will start from 16th. <\/p>\n

The Miami Grand Prix weekend marks the return of Formula 1 racing after a five-week break, with races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia cancelled due to the war in Iran. <\/p>\n

10 of the 11 teams on the grid have bought upgrade packages to Miami, including Lawson’s team, Racing Bulls, in a bid to adapt to the sport’s controversial new regulations.<\/a><\/p>\n

Under the new rules, power is split evenly between combustion and electrical systems, placing a far greater emphasis on drivers’ energy harvesting and battery deployment during a race.<\/p>\n

Asked yesterday about how he felt about upgrades<\/a> made to the car over the break, Lawson said: \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to know at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis part of the year is really about development, so everything we\u2019re bringing, we\u2019re trying to bring better stuff than everybody else, and we\u2019ll see how we go,’ he said. <\/p>\n

Lawson currently sits 10th in the World Drivers Standings, so a points-scoring weekend would be crucial for the Kiwi to maintain his current momentum. <\/p>\n

The Miami Grand Prix Sprint race takes place Sunday (8am NZT). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson suffered an early elimination from sprint qualifying in Miami and will start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,64,69],"class_list":["post-407480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407480","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=407480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}