{"id":597411,"date":"2026-09-11T19:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597411\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T19:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:38:10","slug":"formula-1-liam-lawson-strong-on-first-day-of-spanish-grand-prix-records-two-top-10-practice-finishes-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597411\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1: Liam Lawson strong on first day of Spanish Grand Prix, records two top 10 practice finishes in Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a brief heart-in-mouth moment for the Kiwi when his back left wheel clipped the wall at turn 21, but the car was not damaged. <\/p>\n

\"LiamLiam Lawson in practice for Formula One’s Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid. Photo \/ Red Bull<\/p>\n

The only red flag of the day came via Lawson\u2019s regular teammate Arvid Lindblad, who hit the barrier at turn 14. Until that moment, Lindblad had arguably been the day\u2019s standout, after a best lap of 1m 33.890s. <\/p>\n

In fact, the second session was so crowded, Lindblad\u2019s time was enough for him to finish fourth, after other drivers weren\u2019t afforded the chance to set late flying laps.<\/p>\n

Mercedes\u2019 Kimi Antonelli set the day\u2019s fastest time, 1m 33.662s, a week on from seizing control of the drivers championship <\/a>by winning his home race in Monza from 19th on the grid. <\/p>\n

Both Ferrari cars were Antonelli\u2019s closest challengers, with Charles Leclerc 0.113s back, and Lewis Hamilton 0.149s behind.<\/p>\n

Lawson was 0.875s off temporary teammate Max Verstappen, who finished sixth in FP2. <\/p>\n

In FP1, Lawson\u2019s best lap of 1m 35.539s was enough for 10th place in the opening session, as all drivers\u2019 primary objective became learning the new circuit, without making contact with one of the walls.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi got through 26 laps on the medium and soft tyres, and at one point set the fastest time through the second sector. However, Lawson still finished 1.462s off the pace set by Mercedes\u2019 George Russell, who posted a best lap of 1m 34.077s. <\/p>\n

Lawson\u2019s time was also 0.836s off Verstappen, who finished fifth in the session, and 0.506s back from Lindblad. Meanwhile, Lawson\u2019s Racing Bulls replacement Yuki Tsunoda was less fortunate, and only managed 16 laps before losing his power steering and finishing 18th, nearly three seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n

Drivers will get one final practice session tonight, before grand prix qualifying begins at 2am tomorrow (NZT).<\/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":"There was a brief heart-in-mouth moment for the Kiwi when his back left wheel clipped the wall at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[53396,9055,3246,5907,5972,33035,1888,29188,4999,10813,78,47525,20409,27430,111,139,69,1118,90,48211,52871,47527,8213,9090,171482,65633,213,18835,3010,1237],"class_list":["post-597411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-53396","tag-9055","tag-both","tag-completed","tag-day","tag-finishes","tag-first","tag-formula","tag-friday","tag-grand","tag-in","tag-lawson","tag-liam","tag-madrid","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-ones","tag-practice","tag-prix","tag-recorded","tag-records","tag-sessions","tag-spanish","tag-sports","tag-strong","tag-top","tag-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597411","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=597411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}