Liam Lawson has contended that his two-race spell with Red Bull earlier this season was too short to lead him to begin questioning his own capabilities in Formula 1.
Lawson’s chance with Red Bull’s senior squad transpired to be short-lived as a point-less return from the opening double-header preceded a demotion to Racing Bulls.
The New Zealander had struggled to gel with Red Bull’s recalcitrant RB21 car, which was compounded when various technical problems restricted his overall mileage.
That culminated in Lawson languishing a consequential distance behind team-mate Max Verstappen as he sustained three Q1 eliminations across his two weekends.
Since swapping with Yuki Tsunoda, Lawson’s prospects have improved little as he came home in 17th in Japan and then had an incident-ridden run to 16th in Bahrain.
However, Lawson has denied that his troubles can be attributed to a drop in morale since his axe, instead citing how he is still adapting to Racing Bulls’ VCARB 02 car.
“Honestly, confidence-wise, nothing really changed from the start of the year,” Lawson told media including Motorsport Week in Saudi Arabia.
“I didn’t spend anywhere near enough time for me to reflect on those two races and go, ‘oh my god, I’ve really struggled in this car, I’ve lost my ability’.
“It wasn’t really like that. I did two races that were two very messy weekends from a lot of factors, but I think confidence-wise that didn’t really change.
“It’s just been about getting used to a new car again, and the team, and trying to do all that as quickly as possible.
“I think that’s really been where the focus is at. Confidence-wise I feel, honestly, as I always have.”
Lawson highlights obstacle to Racing Bulls adaptation
Lawson pinpointed how the previous two races being run under conditions that can’t be replicated on the simulator have exacerbated his attempts to get up to speed.
“To be honest, it feels like a little bit of a tricky year with tyres, with set-up,” he explained. “I think warm-up, we’ve had very different conditions.
“We went from Japan being very cold to Bahrain being very hot and when you’re trying to build the tyre up in the perfect way,
that’s a completely unique thing to work on, and you can’t really simulate that in a simulator.
“You’re faced with a lot more real-life conditions that you’re not going to simulate,
and I think this year that stuff that we maybe don’t simulate has been more of a challenge than in past years.
“The car set-up itself, we can simulate that and I think we have that in a pretty good place, but it’s really that other stuff that you can’t actually really work on that can be quite difficult.”
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