Liam Lawson Says Racing Bulls Are Punching Above Their Weight During April Break

Liam Lawson has opened the 2026 Formula 1 season in a form that has surprised even himself, scoring points in each of the first three races with Racing Bulls despite the New Zealander openly admitting the car is not particularly quick.



Three rounds into the new regulations era, the 24-year-old holds 10th in the drivers’ standings and has delivered a seventh in both the China Sprint and Grand Prix before adding ninth in Japan, helping Racing Bulls establish themselves as a reliable midfield operator in a season where car behaviour has confounded the entire grid.



“I think, to be honest, we haven’t actually been that fast, but still managed to come away with three points finishes,” Lawson said after the Japanese Grand Prix. “We’ve maximised what we could from the speed we have, and the team has done a really good job.”



The tone of that admission is instructive. Lawson is not spinning results into something they are not, but he is also framing them accurately — extracting the absolute maximum from a car not yet at the front of the midfield is a skill, and he is demonstrating it consistently.



What makes the start of 2026 so different from 2025 is the context behind the numbers. Twelve months ago Lawson was fighting for a race seat following his rapid and humiliating demotion from Red Bull after just two races in place of Sergio Perez, a stint so brief it barely registered before the decision was reversed and Yuki Tsunoda took over the senior team role.



“This time last year I was fighting for a race seat and obviously it was a very difficult point of the very start of my Formula 1 career,” Lawson said. “Stability-wise, things are in a much better place at the moment, and I think everybody around me is a lot happier as well.”



Racing Bulls team boss Alan Permane has been equally candid about what the team needs from Lawson to take the next step, pointing not to pace — which he described as self-evidently present — but to consistency across a full season.



“I said it many times, and I say again with Liam, I see immense talent there. Really,” Permane said. “What he needs to do, and what he is doing so far, is eliminate mistakes. We can’t be qualifying third on the grid one weekend and then out in Q1 the following weekend. That sort of thing. And he knows that.”



The technical challenge this year is unlike anything the 2026 grid has encountered before. The new regulations have introduced an almost 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, active aerodynamics and a boost button system that demands constant cognitive management from drivers throughout a lap.



Lawson admitted the Japanese Grand Prix left him “mentally drained,” a feeling he described as distinct from the physical exhaustion of previous seasons. The need to think simultaneously about battery harvesting, energy deployment, corner exit throttle loads and the aerodynamic trade-offs from the active systems represents a cognitive workload that has no real precedent in the sport.



“You’re doing a lot more thinking, I would say, when you’re driving,” he said. “There’s quite a big difference between the balance you can extract performance-wise through corners on throttle especially in qualifying compared to how much battery you’re using. That’s probably been the biggest challenge for us as drivers to get used to.”



Lawson also weighed in on the broader driver chorus of criticism about the new cars, taking a characteristically measured position that acknowledged the valid complaints without amplifying them unnecessarily.



“At the end of the day, there’s always going to be things that we want from the car and we’re going to probably — as racing drivers, we complain about everything, literally, so I think that’ll never change,” he said. He added that the biggest regulatory priority in his view is safety, particularly following Oliver Bearman’s high-speed crash at Suzuka which highlighted the potential consequences of the cars’ current behaviour at the limit.



Looking ahead, Lawson sees the April break — extended this year following the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix — as a critical window for the team to introduce the upgrades that could unlock the car’s real potential.



“Going forward, the goal is to find more performance in the car, and once we do that, we’ll be in a strong position,” he said. “We’ve been able to score in every race this year, which gives us a good platform to keep building.”
The post Liam Lawson Says Racing Bulls Are Punching Above Their Weight During April Break appeared first on Formula1News.co.uk .