Despite some setbacks, Lawson is "in a positive position" with the Red Bull RB21

Among the new faces on the grid, Liam Lawson was particularly scrutinised. The New Zealander took his place in the second Red Bull, a car that some might call cursed because it was fatal to its former occupants. Pierre Gasly, Alexander albon or Sergio Perez have all had difficulties alongside Max Verstappen, and all were victims of the Austrian clan's ruthless decisions. While it is still too early to know whether the Kiwi would break this curse, the first laps aboard the Red Bull RB21 were essential to be able to properly launch (or not) his adventure with the team of Milton Keynes.

Lawson « more and more comfortable" with the RB21

After a day and a half of testing and 149 laps completed, this first test was conclusive for Liam Lawson. Despite a big scare on the first day, with a half-spin at turn 3, and a second day cut short due to mechanical problems, the young 23-year-old driver lived up to Red Bull's expectations with a very studious and diligent winter test for the New Zealander. On the eve of his first full campaign in Formula 1, Liam Lawson is smiling after his pre-season tests.

"I'm becoming more and more comfortable in the car, rejoices the new Red Bull driver, who set a best time of 1'30″252 on Thursday with C3 tires. It was a busy day overall. As part of the testing we had to deal with a few teething problems with the car throughout the day. It was all about getting to know the new car. Some stints were cut a bit short and we also had to deal with the weather, which wasn’t the best time for our running programme, as I imagine it was for most of the other teams.”

“All this work is extremely valuable ahead of Melbourne and we feel we are in a positive position, adds the New Zealand driver, confident before going to the Grand Prix of the season, in Australia. That’s the most important thing when it comes to pre-season. It’ll be the last time I drive the car before Melbourne, to get it right, and we’ll learn from all that to develop the best balanced car for the first race.”

Waché highlights Lawson's good technical return

On the Red Bull side, despite several mishaps which limited Liam Lawson's running, the Austrian clan claims to have been satisfied with the work done by the Kiwi on Wednesday and Thursday. “Unfortunately the weather conditions were not ideal, with rain early in the day, so we decided to run a race simulation to allow Liam to get to grips with the long runs and to check the general reliability of the car over a Grand Prix distance.”, said Pierre Waché, Red Bull technical director, after the second day of testing on Thursday.

“Our focus in the afternoon was to understand the car with the C3 compound and the set-up options, and explore the car set-up in general. We wanted to get a full feel for the car today and understand how it worked, but it was also difficult to judge how the car was performing in these conditions and getting a lot of temperature on the tyres. But Liam responded well today and his comments were very close to Max’s.”, stressed the French engineer regarding the technical feedback from his new driver. Now, Liam Lawson and Red Bull have two weeks to analyze the data collected in Bahrain and optimize the RB21 as best as possible before the first meeting of the season, in Melbourne (March 14-16).

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