Lawson banishes Red Bull demons, qualifies eighth for Dutch Grand Prix

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Author: Alex Powell,
Publish Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2026, 8:32am

It’s come 16 months later than he’d have wanted, but Liam Lawson has a real chance to earn his first Red Bull points after qualifying eighth for Formula One’s Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

Any demons the 24-year-old held from his ill-fated Red Bull stint were well and truly exorcised on the coast of the Netherlands, as Lawson put in the exact performance needed of him as an injury replacement for Isack Hadjar.

Having spent the better part of the first two days of the weekend getting up to grips with the unforgiving RB22 – including an 11th place finish in the sprint race – Lawson’s work has paid off in reaching the third and final stage of qualifying (Q3).

The Kiwi had just 60 minutes on Friday night (NZT) to get used to Red Bull’s car, after shining with sister side Racing Bulls to start this year, leading to an SOS after former teammate Hadjar was ruled out of the weekend with a wrist injury.

“It was good,” Lawson said post-qualifying. ”It was an improvement from yesterday, putting everything together.

“Overall, we probably wanted more from the car. I feel like I did a good lap. Tomorrow, we need to try and stay here at least.

“I’m still learning this car, today was quite tricky. But I have a bit of data to review to try and help that.”

While it was an admittedly low bar to clear, Lawson qualifying inside the top 10 marks his best start for Red Bull, having been demoted two races into 2025 after struggling in Australia and China.

As rain fell to mark the end of Q3, Lawson’s time of 1m 11.733s was just 0.115s off the pace set by teammate Max Verstappen in seventh, as Red Bull locked out the fourth row on the grid.

After winning in Hungary to end the first half of the 2026 season last month, world champion Lando Norris put his McLaren on pole with a lap of 1m 11.163s, 0.102s clear of second place, Mercedes’ George Russell – who won the sprint race earlier in the day.

Current world championship leader Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes will start third, while Norris’ McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri qualified fourth.

Lawson’s regular teammate Arvid Lindblad continued to impress by reaching Q3 once again, and will start 10th. Meanwhile, after taking Lawson’s place at Racing Bulls, Yuki Tsunoda will start 12th in his first race of the year, having lost out to the Kiwi to remain on the grid at the end of last season.

Formula One’s Dutch Grand Prix begins at 1am on Monday morning (NZT).

Liam Lawson in the Dutch sprint race. Photo / Red Bull

A day on from qualifying 11th for the sprint race, Lawson’s opening lap in Q1, 1m 13.409s, saw him sit just 0.003s off the early pace, and effectively booked his place in the next stage right off the bat.

By the time all drivers had set at least one competitive lap, Lawson saw 11th, 0.570s clear of elimination, after being forced to abort his second effort of Q1 due to traffic in front of him. With less than four minutes left, Lawson returned to track on a set of used tyres, and improved to 1m 13.392s to advance in 14th – safe by just 0.182s.

Into Q2 for the second time in as many days, Lawson continued to better his times from across the weekend, with a first lap of 1m 12.638s enough for 10th – 0.056s clear of the drop – after the opening efforts.

Another improvement, this time to a 1m 12.301s, saw Lawson move as high as seventh, but faced a nervous wait to see if other drivers could improve behind him. In the end, though, Lawson’s time was more than good enough, as he advanced to earn a top 10 start with 0.315s in the bank.

Earlier, Lawson did well in an uneventful sprint race to keep hold of 11th place – where he’d qualified – as part of his continued learning how to drive the Red Bull car he’d been thrust into.

At the front of the field, Mercedes’ Russell turned pole position into victory, and banked another eight points to his championship standings in pursuit of Antonelli.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Norris exchanged places to finish second and third respectively to complete the podium, while Verstappen crossed the line sixth.

Meanwhile, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly finished eighth to claim the final point available, and took his season tally to 43 – equal with Lawson in the fight to be Formula One’s “best of the rest”, the highest-placed driver outside of the sport’s top four teams.