Lawson qualifies 10th at Silverstone, keeps sprint point after investigation

Liam Lawson has enjoyed arguably the best Saturday of his Formula One season, qualifying in the top 10 for the British Grand Prix after a points finish in the sprint race.

The Kiwi will start 10th on the grid, after reaching the final session of qualifying (Q3) and marks his fourth consecutive top 10 start, in the hunt for a sixth consecutive race where he claims points.

Frustratingly, Lawson’s Q3 time – 1m 29.716s – was slower than the ones he was able to post in Q1 and Q2, as well down on the 1m 28.927s he qualified for the sprint race with.

“Luckily the car was fast enough to go through,” he said post-qualifying. “But compared to ourselves, we went slower every session.

“We lost the balance, we’ll try to fix it. The race car today was okay, hopefully it’s good tomorrow.

“There’s quick guys behind, but we have a good enough car to fight for points.”

That sprint saw Lawson finish eighth to add one point to his 2026 season tally, despite a post-race investigation from the stewards for moving under braking.

Starting 10th is a vast improvement on Lawson’s display at the same race 12 months ago, where he qualified 16th, before he was taken out on the opening lap.

Further enhancing the day, Lawson’s Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad qualified ninth in his first home grand prix, while Red Bull stablemates Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar managed seventh and fifth respectively, as all four of the organisation’s cars reached Q3.

Lawson’s performances to get into Q3 were wildly different. While his lap of 1m 29.300s was enough for second place in Q1, Lawson wasn’t able to better that time in Q2, and could only post 1m 29.429s to sneak through by just 0.032s in 10th, before repeating that finish in Q3.

However, as he proved in the sprint race, Lawson is more than capable of making up places when the 52-lap race begins.

Fresh from winning the sprint race earlier in the day, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli claimed pole position, and is joined on the front row by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. The pair’s teammates Lewis Hamilton and George Russell start third and fourth respectively, as the two teams look to have pulled clear in the race for the drivers and constructors championships.

The British Grand Prix begins at 2am on Monday morning.

Earlier, Lawson crossed the line eighth in the 17-lap sprint race, but was summoned to the stewards after allegedly moving under braking into turn 15 when defending from Hadjar.

Liam Lawson in the British Grand Prix sprint race. Photo / Red Bull

However, after a lengthy review, stewards sided with Lawson, who argued he had not commenced braking at the time he changed his line to defend Hadjar. Lawson was instead given a warning, but kept his point.

That result gave Lawson his fifth lot of points in succession, after also finishing inside the top 10 in Canada, Monaco, Barcelona and Austria.

The Kiwi had dropped as low as 11th after a poor start, but was able to fight his way back and complete the race comfortably inside the top 10. Finishing eighth marks just the second time Lawson has claimed points in a sprint race, after doing the same in China earlier this year.

That extra point takes Lawson’s season tally to 31, and sees him close the distance to Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in the driver’s championship – with both vying for the tag of “best of the rest”, as the highest-placed outside of Formula One’s top four teams.

At the front of the field, Antonelli was able to move from second to take the chequered flag, and further extend his championship lead over teammate Russell. Polesitter Hamilton was only able to take second place after losing out to Antonelli, while McLaren’s Lando Norris was able to complete the podium in third.

Lawson’s teammate Lindblad finished the sprint where he started in 10th, to miss the points by two places.

British Grand Prix qualifying results

1. Kimi Antonelli - Mercedes
2. Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
3. Lewis Hamilton - Ferrari
4. George Russell - Mercedes
5. Isack Hadjar - Red Bull
6. Lando Norris - McLaren
7. Max Verstappen - Red Bull
8. Oscar Piastri - McLaren
9. Arvid Lindblad - Racing Bulls
10. Liam Lawson - Racing Bulls
11. Gabriel Bortoleo - Audi
12. Pierre Gasly - Alpine
13. Nico Hulkenberg - Audi
14. Ollie Bearman - Haas
15. Carlos Sainz - Williams
16. Alex Albon - Williams
17. Esteban Ocon - Haas
18. Valtteri Bottas - Cadillac
19. Franco Colapinto - Alpine
20. Sergio Perez - Cadillac
21. Lance Stroll - Aston Martin
22. Fernando Alonso - Aston Martin

Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.