Lawson had potential to reach top-10 shoot-out

Liam Lawson feels he had the potential to reach the top-10 shoot-out in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix following a stellar one-lap performance around Monza.

In only his second qualifying session for AlphaTauri after replacing Daniel Ricciardo, after the Australian broke a bone in his left hand in a practice crash ahead of last weekend’s Dutch GP, Lawson finished just 0.164secs behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.

The duo will start 12th and 11th respectively, with Tsunoda missing out on Q3 by 0.013s to McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Effectively, given Lawson went into last week’s qualifying session at Zandvoort with just 60 minutes of a wet final practice under his belt, his performance at the ‘Temple of Speed’ was eye-opening.

Nevertheless, the 21-year-old felt he should have done better.

“It was a decent session, but I think we definitely had more time in it,” said Lawson.

“With both cars so close to Q3, there was clearly potential to be in there, so a little bit disappointing but happy with the step we made (from Friday practice), just (there was) still a little bit more to come.”

Lawson finished just under half a second behind Tsunoda after Friday’s two practice sessions at Monza, so effectively gained more than three-tenths of a second in building up his confidence in the AT04 through to the end of qualifying.

For Lawson, it will now be about extracting “that last little bit”, as he sees it, recognising it is always “the hardest”.

As to how he does that, he said: “It’s just time, a little bit more time adjusting and getting used to it.

“Formula 1 takes so much commitment with these cars, but we’re definitely getting there, just a little bit more.

“Of course, you always look back and you always go ‘Yeah, there are little bits I could have done better’. For sure, I will learn from it.”

Given the number of laps conducted in the car, especially dry running in light of the conditions experienced over the Dutch GP weekend, Lawson knows he is still exploring the limits of the car.

“You can feel it but it’s little things, like knowing how much the step up and the grip is going to be from compound to compound, and what it’s going to do to the car,” assessed Lawson.

“Things like that that you have to feel first before you can know where to discover the extra grip so that just takes me a little bit of time.”