Liam Lawson is still adjusting to the new Racing Bulls VCARB 03, and he says his biggest challenge so far has been how different it feels compared to his previous car.
While the 24-year-old hasn’t exactly put a foot wrong early in the season, he admits that qualifying has been a bit of a struggle.
Even though it’s still early days, Lawson already has one P7 finish under his belt and more points on the board. The question now is whether he can figure out how to get on top of these early issues with qualifying in time for the rest of the campaign.
So far this year, Racing Bulls have built one of the stronger midfield cars on the grid. The VCARB 03 has even shown signs that it can go toe-to-toe with Red Bull at times. In Shanghai, Lawson made his way from P13 to P7 in the Sprint, finishing ahead of Haas’ Oliver Bearman and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The Chinese Grand Prix brought another strong showing from Lawson, who edged out Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar for seventh place. He finished more than six seconds clear of his former teammate and matched Verstappen’s points total through three rounds.
Liam Lawson admits he needs to ease off in qualifying with Racing Bulls’ 2026 car
Lawson started the year by qualifying P8 for the Australian Grand Prix, but he’s found that adapting to the new cars has made qualifying particularly difficult. In Shanghai, he lined up P13 for the Sprint and P14 for the main race.
He explained that it’s easy to “overdrive” in these sessions, something that didn’t happen as much last year when he could push harder with the old VCARB 02. Now, Lawson is realising that a more measured approach might deliver better results.
“I would say it’s quite easy to overdrive,” Lawson said, via quotes by Auto Action. “I think in last year’s car, you went into qualifying and you tried to make quite a big step.
“Obviously, with how much downforce the cars had, you gained grip and you started attacking the car in qualifying.
“Obviously, you can still do it and get it wrong and overdrive, but it was definitely an exciting factor going into qualifying when your car is like…you’re trying to attack it.”
Racing Bulls team principal, Peter Bayer, pointed out before this season began that Lawson needed to raise his game in this area. Last year Isack Hadjar reached Q3 on 16 occasions compared to just eight for Lawson. And while Hadjar only exited seven times in Q1 during his campaign against Hadjar – who managed two Q1 exits.
This season has started a bit brighter for him though. He got into Q3 again in Australia before making Q2 again in China.
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