Liam Lawson gave a wry laugh at Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff’s claim that the new Red Bull power unit provides both Red Bull teams with a full second per lap. While the New Zealander is pleased with Red Bull Powertrains‘ first engine, he doesn’t believe it’s actually as potent as Wolff suggests.
Red Bull and Racing Bulls have completed their first test miles with the Red Bull Powertrains unit in Bahrain. It’s the first time in the Austrians’ history they’ve run a home-built engine on the grid. Rivals monitored the two teams’ running at the Bahrain International Circuit closely. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was particularly struck and even stated that the RB22 is a second per lap faster than the rest of the field.
‘Not a second faster than the rest’
Liam Lawson – driver at Red Bull’s sister team Racing Bulls – could laugh at the Mercedes team principal’s remarks. “One second per lap faster than the rest? Who said that?” he asked the media in Bahrain. The New Zealander was then told the comments came from Wolff. “Oh my God. We’ll see about that. At the moment the power units are, honestly, working very well. That’s positive. But when it comes to performance numbers it’s hard to say, because we have no idea what the others are doing. So yes, I think we’re definitely strong on performance. I wouldn’t say we’re a second faster than the rest. But we’ll find that out soon enough. So far everything’s going well.”
Still, the New Zealander isn’t entirely happy with the brand‑new cars. “Yes, it’s pretty difficult to drive,” Lawson replied when asked if the cars feel a bit ‘nervy’. “Especially here we have a lot of tyre degradation, so we’re sliding a lot more this year, and that makes it quite tricky to drive. Right now I’d say there’s still a lot to learn to optimise driving these cars between the short runs and qualifying with the battery management and also the long runs. It’s a learning curve.”
