The Racing Bulls balance sheet after the Barcelona Shakedown: reliability ok, performance unknown

The words of Lawson and Lindblad Racing Bulls has already carried out three days of testing in Barcelona and therefore the Shakedown for the Faenza team is over. Here’s what drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad had to say. Liam Lawson: “It’s been a good and interesting three days of testing here in Barcelona. There’s a lot to learn for all of us, as the 2026 car is very different to drive, so I’ve tried to adapt as much as possible. The car has less downforce than before, so it moves around a lot; there’s a lot of power when the battery is fully depleted, but the way you have to manage it is completely new. We’ve tried different solutions on the car and it’s been great to continue to accumulate kilometers with the new power unit. We had a pretty good test in terms of reliability, but in terms of expectations, it’s very difficult to say too much at this point, because we don’t know where the others are. I think it will remain an unknown for a while, but we are focused on our work and we want to continue to improve to be in the best possible shape for the first race in Melbourne. Arvid Lindblad: “We had some good testing this week at the Barcelona Shakedown. It was really exciting to get behind the wheel of an F1 car and get the 2026 season off to a great start. We learned a lot about the car and we are obviously already planning how to continue this work in the simulator before the next test. Coming here with a completely new car and power unit, I felt like there was always an unknown and a bit of uncertainty about expectations, but we managed to gather a good mileage, which is fantastic. These days we have been focusing on increasing the mileage and trying to understand the car as much as possible and understand how to get the most out of it, as this is very different to last year and I have enjoyed it so far in Bahrain”.