Liam Lawson labels Racing Bulls 'naive' after surprise qualifying defeat

Liam Lawson believes his Racing Bulls team were "naive" to dismiss the threat of Aston Martin during Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying.

A major surprise package of qualifying were the Aston Martins, who took fifth and sixth through Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, having been on the back row at Spa last time out. 

Lawson was ninth quickest, out-qualifying team-mate Isack Hadjar, and was within a tenth of out-qualifying Max Verstappen, who was only eighth. 

However, the AMR25s of Alonso and Stroll were nearly four-tenths quicker than the New Zealander, who felt the team should have done a better job of realising the threat posed by the Silverstone-based team. 

Reflecting on their performance, Lawson indicated that he felt his team had been "naive."

"To be honest, we thought that maybe they were running a little bit light [on fuel] through practice, but clearly, they've just got good speed," Lawson explained to media including RacingNews365.

"It was probably naive of us to think that, so they've done a good job, and done good laps in qualifying.

"I think from where we were yesterday and this morning, it is a good step, but to be honest, with the potential we had, a lot more was possible.

"We were gradually finding time, and then we went to Q3, and it kind of just fell away, the conditions changed, and I don't know why it affected us more."

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Won't be able to beat Max Verstappen

Despite qualifying within a tenth of Verstappen, Lawson does not believe that he will be in the same race as the Red Bull, but is targetting the Astons as well as reigning F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto, who took a career-best seventh. 

"Honestly, it doesn't make a difference. The fact is that we had more potential in the car to be better than P9, and we didn't extract it, and that's what we will be looking into. 

"We won't have the pace to beat Max, but we will try to target the Stake in front of us [of Bortoleto], and the Astons are very fast.

"Their qualifying pace has been very strong, and I think that'll translate into the race, and maybe it will be tricky as there are two of them, but we also have two of us, so we will do the best we can."