Liam Lawson bewildered by Miami chaos: 'I honestly can't understand how that's possible'

Liam Lawson was less than impressed by the confusion surrounding sprint qualifying at the Miami Grand Prix, after Alex Albon progressed to SQ2 at his expense, despite allegedly committing a track limits violation.

The Williams driver was not initially investigated by the stewards, but has since been summoned.

Had that happened sooner, Lawson may well have been granted a stay, having been P17 in SQ1 and subsequently eliminated from the session.

Amid the uncertainty, the Racing Bulls driver returned from the weight bridge and got back into his VCARB 03 — but no reprieve came, as explained by the team.

When asked whether he got back into his car in case there was a chance of being re-admitted to the session, Lawson pointed his frustration toward the race director and stewards.

The 24-year-old replied: "No, Alex did track limits, but I think they [the FIA] realised too late, and because he'd already gone out on track...

"I honestly can't understand how that's possible, but from our understanding, he's literally done track limits and then gone through to SQ2."

The confluence of misfortune that led to the confusion was triggered by Lawson misplacing his car during the first segment of sprint qualifying.

"It was a series of bad events, to be honest, through SQ1," he said whilst detailing the snowball effect he experienced.

"[I was a] little bit misplaced on the garage exit, and ended up a lot further back on track and didn't have a very good outlap, and then I had a big flat spot in Turn 1 and destroyed the tyre.

"So I tried to do the second lap on the flat-spotted tyre, and just had a lot of vibration. So yeah, it knocked us out, unfortunately.

"I think the car has actually improved from this morning, so it's a shame."