Red Bull’s RB21 Formula 1 car has performance available to be extracted – but largely in a certain, admittedly narrow, window.
When comparing how the drivers occupying Red Bull’s rotating second seat had got on, it was evident that was something that Liam Lawson struggled with, while Yuki Tsunoda has been able to exploit that more, even without the benefit of pre-season testing.
Lawson has been able to reclaim some of his mojo since dropping down to Racing Bulls, although he’s mostly second fiddle to Isack Hadjar as he gets acquainted with the VCARB 02. Penalties have, by and large, restricted what Lawson have been able to do – but he’s also struggled to maintain quite the same level of race pace as Hadjar could.
Overall, the rookie has been a stronger performer than Lawson. Take the Saudi Arabian GP; Hadjar broke past Fernando Alonso nice and early and thus massaged his hard tyres into a longer stint, while Lawson (on mediums) spent another 10 laps sitting in the Aston Martin’s wheel tracks before finally getting past.
That the two were separated by just 1.4s at the chequered flag is largely down to Carlos Sainz slowing Hadjar down, rather than Lawson finding prodigious pace on the hard tyre; Hadjar’s laps at the start of Lawson’s stint were better before getting caught and passed by Lewis Hamilton.
But it’s getting better; the Kiwi is closer than he was to Hadjar at the start of his relocation, and the Frenchman feels that he’s starting to be pushed a little bit more with each passing round. If Lawson can eradicate his apparent magnetism to in-race time penalties, then he’ll be on the cusp of a points breakthrough this year.
Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls VCARB 02 leads Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing RB21
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli – Getty Images
And this writer would like to see Lawson do well, and to show that class he first showed with AlphaTauri in 2023. He has the opportunity to prove he deserves a long future in F1; although his current performances haven’t quite shown that, getting on an even keel over the remainder of this season’s first half will help his cause greatly.
He might need to be a bit more honest with himself to get there. He says that his confidence didn’t take a knock after his Red Bull demotion, but it absolutely must have done – and it should have done. As harsh as it seemed at the time, every driver on the grid has had to face a test of a similar magnitude. To take a life lesson from Chumbawamba’s seminal classic Tubthumping, a career isn’t just defined by how they were knocked down, but how quickly they were able to stand up.
The Racing Bulls VCARB 02 doesn’t have the outright performance to be challenging the top four teams, but it’s very much in a tete-a-tete with Williams for the championship’s fifth spot overall. And that’s where Lawson needs to be looking – at ninth and 10th places, not embroiled in scraps with Aston Martins and Saubers.
Tsunoda, meanwhile, is showing that he was the better option for Red Bull at the start. Whether he’s able to open the lockbox of top-end performance of the Red Bull in qualifying will be a stern test; the car is good enough to secure poles and the odd grand prix victory if it’s taken to its limit, but the Japanese driver needs a lot more time to get there. Patience will be a virtue.
Now he seems to be at a point where he can consistently unlock the lap time needed to get the car into Q3, but he should have far more in his locker when he gets there. As Gianluca d’Alessandro explained in his analysis of Tsunoda’s opening rounds, he’s already learned a lot about the car – but the process is ongoing.
