Liam Lawson to start 14th in Chinese Grand Prix after earning sprint race points

Saturday, 14 March 2026

A double-yellow flag made for a cruel finish to qualifying for Liam Lawson at the Chinese Grand Prix on Saturday, as Kimi Antonelli became the youngest pole-sitter in history in his Mercedes.

On a day when Kiwi driver Lawson had just a few hours earlier bagged his first points of the season after a career-best seventh-place sprint-race finish, the Racing Bulls rep sunk to 14th in qualifying for Sunday’s race in Shanghai.

Lawson posted a time of 1min 34.731sec with his first lap in Q1, which, by the time all 22 cars had completed a lap, had the 24-year-old in 12th spot.

Times of 1min 34.209sec and 1.34.139sec followed, and the New Zealander was dancing a mighty-fine line of being one of the first six eliminated, ending up a mere 0.178sec ahead of Carlos Sainz in 17th to advance to Q2.

As the final man to set a time in Q2, Lawson improved further to 1min 33.765sec, but it was only enough to have him in 14th, narrowly ahead of team-mate Arvid Lindblad (1min 33.784sec).

Any hopes of making the top 10 to go through to Q3 were dashed in the final seconds of the session when both Racing Bulls drivers were in the midst of setting their final times, only for Gabriel Bortoleto to go spinning out and bring the double-yellow flag. Lawson likely would have been out in Q2 regardless.

George Russell, winner of last weekend’s season-opener in Melbourne, as well as the sprint race in China, recovered from a shocking technical hitch that had the Brit motionless on the track early in Q3, to qualify second and make it a Mercedes lockout on the front row of the grid for a second week running.

Italian 19-year-old Antonelli, who duly finished second in Melbourne six days ago, clocked 1min 32.064sec as the fastest qualifier, 0.222sec ahead of Russell, with Ferrari duo Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc third and fourth, respectively.

Chinese Grand Prix – starting grid

1: Kimi Antonelli; 2: George Russell; 3: Lewis Hamilton; 4: Charles Leclerc; 5: Oscar Piastri; 6: Lando Norris; 7: Pierre Gasly; 8: Max Verstappen; 9: Isack Hadjar; 10: Oliver Bearman; 11: Nico Hulkenberg; 12: Franco Colapinto; 13: Esteban Ocon; 14: Liam Lawson; 15: Arvid Lindblad; 16: Gabriel Bortoleto; 17: Carlos Sainz; 18: Alex Albon; 19: Fernando Alonso; 20: Valtteri Bottas; 21: Lance Stroll; 22: Sergio Perez

Seventh in sprint race

Liam Lawson’s starting woes are in the rearview mirror, after rocketing to a seventh-place finish at the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race.

The Kiwi Racing Bulls driver, who had qualified 13th, enjoyed a dream drive at the Shanghai International Circuit on Saturday, and despite tumbling a couple of spots late-on, was still able to record what was his best-ever effort in a sprint race (beating his ninth-places in Brazil in 2024 and the United States last year).

That gives the 24-year-old two championship points, to get him on the board in 2026, after finishing outside the points in 13th in the season-opening race in Melbourne last weekend, where he had started from eighth but fallen to 20th early following his issues at the start line where he only narrowly missed being involved in a catastrophic crash.

Those mechanical challenges had reared their head again in Friday qualifying, where Lawson was knocked out in the second of three stages, and he and his new engineer, Alexandre Iliopoulos, both cut frustrated figures as they tried to get a handle on the car’s power struggles.

However, Lawson and Iliopoulos were delighted with what transpired in the first of six sprint events on the 24-race calendar, soon set to be come 22 once the looming cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix is official.

“Well done, Liam. Well done. That was what we wanted,” Iliopoulos told the Kiwi driver on his team radio shortly after the finish.

“That was hard, man, the f…… safety car killed us,” Lawson replied, in reference to Nico Hülkenberg’s technical issue on lap 13 of the 19-lap affair, which saw the safety car come out.

While the majority of the field started on the medium tyre, Lawson was only one of three drivers who started on hards, and it proved a master stroke, as the New Zealander gradually worked his way up from a 10th spot he sat in for the first half of the race.

He went on to pass Pierre Gasly on lap six, then was up to eighth on lap nine after going past Isack Hadjar, then on the next lap he was swiftly up to seventh after going around Oliver Bearman.

Lawson then gained two spots, to fifth, when the safety car was out, by staying out on the track while others pitted, but when the race resumed on lap 17, the Kiwi was indeed caught by both Oscar Piastri and Antonelli.

Mercedes’ George Russell, who won last weekend in Melbourne, won the race from pole, but had an immediate epic tit-for-tat, lead-changing battle with Lewis Hamilton, who ended up third, behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton, last year’s Chinese sprint winner, had enjoyed a brilliant start from fourth, while this time it was Russell’s team-mate, Kimi Antonelli, and Red Bull star Max Verstappen who endured the start-line problems.

Antonelli, who placed second in Melbourne, dropped from the front row of the grid down to seventh, before rising to finish fifth, even after serving a 10-second time penalty, having sent Lawson’s team-mate Arvid Lindblad spinning on the first lap, the 18-year-old rookie then having his car retired on lap 12.

Verstappen, who was second in the championship last year after four consecutive title triumphs, and who won the China sprint in 2024, had registered his lowest-ever qualifying position, of eighth, some 1.7 seconds back from pole, in what was his 25th sprint race, and ended up ninth, a place out of the points.

Chinese Grand Prix – sprint race standings

1: George Russell; 2: Charles Leclerc; 3: Lewis Hamilton; 4: Lando Norris; 5: Kimi Antontelli; 6: Oscar Piastri; 7: Liam Lawson; 8: Ollie Bearman