The Racing Bulls F1 car may be easier to drive than the Red Bull, but Liam Lawson is not using that as an excuse as he “obviously” needs to adapt to the RB21.

Two races into the F1 2025 season, Formula 1’s rumour mill claims time is already running out for Lawson after back-to-back disappointing races to kick off his Red Bull career.

Is the Racing Bulls car easier to drive than the RB21?

Additional reporting by Pablo Hidalgo

Yet to get out of Q1 in three attempts or score a single point, there’s speculation that either Yuki Tsunoda or Isack Hadjar could replace him.

The Racing Bulls team-mates have been amongst the early-season stars with Tsunoda a constant in Q3 while Hadjar has outpaced Lawson in qualifying, and secured his first Q3 appearance in Shanghai on Saturday.

Tsunoda also has three points and can consider himself unlucky that he doesn’t have more, undone by a strategy call in Australia before a broken front wing hampered him in China.

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Even Hadjar, despite an “embarrassing” start to his F1 career when he crashed on the formation lap in Melbourne, has secured better results than Lawson having knocked on the door of the top 10 in China with a P11 result.

It has Max Verstappen’s theorising that the Racing Bulls F1 car is easier to drive than the RB21.

“If you look at the difference between the two drivers at the other teams, they are all closer together,” Verstappen told De Telegraaf of his gap to Lawson. “It also shows that our car is extremely tough.

“I think if you put Liam in the Racing Bulls car, he will go faster. I really think so. That car is easier to drive than ours.”

“I mean, they’re doing very well, they’re very close to me,” he added to Sky F1. “Maybe that also says something, but yeah, I don’t know.”

Lawson agrees that the VCARB 02 is easier to drive than the Red Bull.

“Yes, it’s an easier car to drive,” he told Spanish TV. “But obviously I have to drive this one fast.”

“It’s a definitely a difficult car to drive,” he added. “Obviously, we’ll learn from it.

“This weekend was perhaps even harder than Melbourne. We tried something with the setup that just didn’t work. Obviously, the more we drive and the more we try things, the more we learn from it, so I guess that’s good. But unfortunately, it’s not going in the right direction.”

But it is not only the drivers who feel that way, Christian Horner revealing the VCARB 02 is more “stable” than the RB21.

“I think the Racing Bull is a more settled car in terms of it probably is a little more stable on entry,” said the team principal.

“It probably has a bit more understeer in that car and therefore is easier to adapt to but you can see the difference in pace in the cars on a longer stint.

“But I think in terms of finding the limit in a car that has inherent understeer, it is always going to be easier than finding the limit in a car that is a little more edgy.”

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