Liam Lawson revival leads Racing Bulls charge as Arvid Lindblad shows early promise

Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s sister squad, has kicked off the 2026 season firmly in the midfield, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad showing promise at every round so far.

After points on debut for Lindblad, the 2026 season’s only rookie, with two other points finishes for Lawson, the supposed ‘junior’ team sits within two points of its senior counterpart at this early stage.

Liam Lawson admits ‘pretty different’ circumstances from one year ago

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Part of this small points gap will come as a result of Red Bull’s own early issues at Milton Keynes, but the Racing Bulls and the VCARB 03 has provided a solid working platform for both its drivers so far.

Both cars made it into Q3 at the season opener in Australia, and Lindblad’s flying start saw him running at the top end of the field before faster cars were eventually able to pass, the Briton finishing a creditable eighth place on debut.

Since then, it has been Lawson who has caught the eye, particularly for how he has risen through the field to score points.

Gaining six places in the Sprint in China, followed by a seven-place jump in the race, and another five-place gain on his grid position in Suzuka, the New Zealander appears to have adapted well to the racing requirements of the 2026 machinery.

Having been moved back to the junior team after just two races as a Red Bull Racing driver last season, Lawson could be forgiven for being a driver short on confidence.

After almost a full year and a full pre-season with his current team, though, it appears a different story this time around.

“Pretty different to this time last year,” Lawson recently admitted to media including PlanetF1.com.

“This time last year, I was fighting for a race seat and, obviously, it was a very difficult point of the very start of my Formula 1 career, to be honest.

“Stability-wise, things are in a much better place at the moment, and I think everybody around me is a lot happier as well, so it’s been a good start to the year.

“I think the biggest challenge, obviously, is getting our heads around these new cars, the progression, the development of everything, which is pretty exciting for us, as much as the cars are quite tricky at the moment.

“There’s a lot there, but I think for us it’s a lot more opportunity, especially at this point of the year, when I think reliability is a big question mark as well, and the first couple of races have been just a lot happening.

“We’ve managed to capitalise on that stuff, and we just want to try and keep doing that through the next few races.”

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Lindblad showing early signs of promise in rookie races

For Lindblad’s part, he was right on Lawson’s tail in qualifying in Australia and China in terms of grid positions, and made it through to Q3 on his own in Japan.

Lawson’s greater experience in racecraft will likely have helped at this early stage, but with a driver’s teammate being the only true barometer to how the other is performing, the teenager has matched up relatively well so far.

For those who may feel arriving in Formula 1 in such huge regulation changes could be of benefit to the Briton, he does not agree that it represents a levelling of the playing field in a sense.

“I think in the end, it’s very different for all of us,” he explained.

“None of us have really dealt with cars with batteries like this. I’d say, normally, the sort of performance that we’re all used to comes from driving and from the handling of the car, and maybe the tyres, you could say, but the engine’s never really something that is kind of fixed, you know?

“So this year, the way that we can play with that is very different. None of us have really got experience of it, so I wouldn’t really say it’s an advantage or anything.

“I think you could argue it’s maybe a disadvantage in future years to come in, because we’ll all get up to speed with this. But no, I don’t think it’s an advantage as of now.”

Where do Racing Bulls go from here?

Overall, the season so far has been a campaign which we have largely come to expect from Red Bull’s sister squad – competitive among the midfield, with its drivers getting the opportunity to flourish when the situation allows.

The battle in the midfield is only expected to become more congested as the season goes on, though, with Williams and Aston Martin both having had slower-than-expected starts to the campaign.

Williams will no doubt shed weight as the year goes by, and once Aston Martin gets on top of correlation issues between chassis and power unit, it will expect to fight in the upper echelons of the midfield.

Team principal Alan Permane, though, has spoken of the team’s aggressive upgrade plan in the coming races. While upgrades will be coming throughout the field in a high-speed development race, maintaining or even increasing the gap to those behind will be on the team’s mind.

Confirming the team will be bringing aerodynamic upgrades to the VCARB 03, Permane said: “We had a pretty decent upgrade planned for Bahrain which, of course, we will see in Miami. We had another upgrade planned for Montreal, so we will have a sort of quick double hit there.

“All our freight has come back from Japan, and that’s the same for all teams, so we are going to take the opportunity to do some unplanned work on the chassis.

“There are some bits and bobs to do. There are some upgrades there that weren’t actually planned in until the end of this flyaway sequence, so that’s helped us there.”

Permane confirmed racegoing members of staff have been encouraged to take time off where possible in this unexpected gap, given the fast-paced nature of the start to the season all the way from the first shakedown test in January.

With upgrades in the works, a strong start to the season overall and two drivers which have shown good signs of performance, Racing Bulls’ situation can effectively be distilled into the race team taking the chance to rest up and go again, while work is ongoing at the factory to plan the next steps and fabricate new parts.

Season rating to date: 7

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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