The New Zealander completed his final laps of the closed Barcelona shakedown on Thursday morning, adding 64 tours to his tally after an 88-lap opening day as Racing Bulls focused on understanding its all-new car and power unit under the 2026 regulations.
Lawson described the test as a steep but encouraging learning curve, with the team prioritising mileage and adaptability over any early conclusions about form.
“It was a positive and interesting three days of testing here in Barcelona,” Lawson said.
“There’s a lot to learn for all of us as the 2026 car is very different to drive, so I just tried to adapt as much as I could.”
The traits of the new-generation machinery were immediately apparent, particularly the reduced downforce and the demands of energy deployment.
“The car has less downforce compared to the past, so it moves around quite a bit; there’s a lot of power when the battery is fully deployed but the way in which you have to manage it is something completely new,” he added.
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Racing Bulls completed its program without major interruptions, something Lawson highlighted as a key positive at such an early stage of development.
“We’ve been trying several things on the car and it’s been great to keep building mileage on the new power unit,” he said.
“We had a pretty strong test in terms of reliability.”
Despite the progress, Lawson was clear that comparisons with rival teams are premature, with limited running and radically different concepts across the grid.
“In terms of expectations, it’s very hard to say at this point, as we don’t know where everyone else is,” he said.
“I think that will stay quite unknown for a while, but we’re focused on our own job and want to keep improving in order to be in the best shape possible for the first race in Melbourne.”
That outlook echoed his assessment across the week, repeatedly stressing development over early headlines.
“We just keep learning,” Lawson said earlier in the test.
“We’re making, obviously, big gains, but so is everybody else.”
With Arvid Lindblad sharing duties across the three permitted days of running, Lawson also pointed to the value of collaboration as Racing Bulls adapts to a new technical era.
“Overall, we ended the test in a much better place to where we started on Monday,” Lawson said.
Attention now turns to official pre-season testing in Bahrain, where hotter conditions and a very different circuit will provide the next reference point for the VCARB 03.
“The next test in Bahrain is in less than two weeks so we’ll keep collecting data, but it’s a completely different track to here, so I’ll be curious to see how the car performs in those conditions,” Lawson said.
Team principal Alan Permane said the shakedown delivered exactly what Racing Bulls needed as it prepares for official testing.
“We feel we hit the ground running with the new car and power unit, and they’ve both run very reliably since the first run,” Permane said.
“We achieved everything we set out to do here at the Shakedown, and now we feel ready and look forward to going to the official Bahrain Pre-Season Testing in less than two weeks.”
Piastri hits track on disrupted day four of Barcelona F1 shakedown
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