'Playing catch-up' – Lawson laments tough Friday in Canada after car issues

Liam Lawson admits he will "be playing catch-up" for the remainder of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend after mechanical issues prevented him from doing almost any running on Friday.

The Kiwi's Racing Bulls machine came to a halt out on circuit in the opening minutes of the single Free Practice session ahead of Sprint Qualifying in the afternoon, with Lawson having only completed five laps.

Lawson was then left to miss Sprint Qualifying as the team were unable to fix the hydraulic leak in time and instead were focused on repairing it for Saturday's 23-lap Sprint.

"It's frustrating," said Lawson on his day. "Obviously tomorrow is definitely more important but obviously this also doesn't help tomorrow as well.

"It's a shame, the car looks really good, the pace is looking really good [with team mate Arvid Lindblad]. I felt good in the first couple of laps this morning.

"Plenty of positives at least that we have good speed, we just need to hopefully have a good day tomorrow. Try and learn what we can in the Sprint and then put it all into Qualifying."

Arvid Lindblad qualified ninth for the Sprint and Lawson is optimistic that he can match his rookie team mate's performance.

However, he admitted that having confidence around the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve was pivotal due to its unique challenges, which will be difficult as he will only have the Sprint ahead of Qualifying before Sunday's 70-lap Grand Prix to get up to speed.

"I think in a weekend that is a Sprint, already it's tough to get that track time," he added. "FP1 is really important to put the laps together because that's the only actual practice we get, the rest of the time we are in competition and in performance mode.

"It definitely makes it really tough on a weekend like this. Also this track is quite hard, a bit unique. Luckily I've been here before but it's going to be tough for sure, I'm going to be playing catch-up tomorrow and obviously the way that we drive in the Sprint is different to Qualifying.

"I think Qualifying will be the biggest step that I have to make and I'll be doing what I can to prepare for that."