Liam Lawson explains 'soul-destroying mistake' that has left him with Italian GP mountain to climb

Liam Lawson has conceded to enduring a "soul-destroying" moment that resulted in him equalling his worst qualifying display of the season.

Lawson will start from last on the grid at Monza after his second hot lap in Q1 was deleted for a track limits violation at the first Lesmo. The previous occasion was his second and ultimately last race with Red Bull in China.

The New Zealander was in a safe position after his first run, and Racing Bulls was feeling confident of getting both cars into Q3 after making set-up changes to improve high-speed braking stability.

Lawson, though, fell short due to his error, leaving him with a lap time from Q1 that fell almost half a second shy of the Q2 cut-off mark.

"It was a shame because the car was fast this weekend, but we tried to put it all on that last lap, and it cost us," said Lawson, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, after qualifying.

"We just put a bit of pressure on ourselves to try and put it all on that last lap. But it's not an excuse. We should still have been able to do it.

"For us, I had a car in front through the middle sector, I got a bit of understeer, and I went off, and that's what cost us.

"It's soul-destroying when you go through the first couple of corners and you're already well up on yourself, and you just make a silly mistake and run off. That's hard.

"Obviously, you don't have to be directly in front of somebody to give them dirty air. You can do it from a couple of seconds in front, and when you're trying to push the limits, I was expecting more front grip than I got."

Lawson will effectively start 18th, however, as team-mate Isack Hadjar and Alpine's Pierre Gasly are due for pit-lane starts.

As to what can be achieved, he said: "Try and move forward. It's a lot of cars to overtake, but we'll do our best."

Lawson knows there is pace in the car to allow him to move up through the field.

"We had good long run pace yesterday, and I think we've improved the car as well," he said. "So it's a shame we didn't show it today. 

"The car has been very fast this weekend. We've had a lot of issues that we've been trying to get on top of. I think we got on top of them. We had no issues in quali, but it just didn't go our way."