Liam Lawson outlines disappointment on unexpected Red Bull return

Liam Lawson has outlined his disappointment at failing to make the final part of sprint qualifying at Zandvoort, on what has been an unexpected return to Red Bull.

It was announced ahead of this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix that Lawson would partner Max Verstappen for the first time since last year's Chinese Grand Prix, as a result of Isack Hadjar sustaining a wrist injury.

To Lawson's credit, he quickly settled into the RB22, showing consistent lap times in practice before going quicker than Verstappen in the opening part of sprint qualifying.

Unfortunately, come SQ2, the New Zealander failed to make an expected lap time improvement, resulting in him qualifying for the sprint in 11th.

It was a disappointment for Lawson, who was pleased with how comfortable he was feeling in the Red Bull and eager to discover why he failed to improve.

Asked what went wrong in the second part of sprint qualifying, Lawson responded: "Yeah, honestly, I don't really know. 

"Obviously, it's been an interesting day, but yeah, normally you sort of improve through qualifying, and we started SQ1 quite strong, and then we didn't make the same step that everybody else did.

"So obviously, we'll look into it. There's a lot, obviously, to learn today. But so far, honestly, I feel quite good in the car. So yeah, I was honestly feeling okay through qualifying. 

"I thought we'd get through, so it's a shame."