Liam Lawson has revealed how Red Bull Ford flipped expectations by delivering a “strong” F1 power unit after an initial lack of confidence in the product.

Red Bull created its own powertrains division in 2023, and this year both the factory team and Racing Bulls are running the DM01 power unit. In recent years, after Honda scaled back it’s F1 effort, Red Bull Powertrains – which would later become Red Bull Ford – built and maintained the manufacturer’s power units, but there was no design input.

As has been the case for Audi, and the returning Honda with Aston Martin, questions were raised as to how competitive the Red Bull unit would be given the disadvantaged starting point compared to established marques such as Mercedes and Ferrari.

For Lawson, the bar has been hit, and then some.

Asked by Crash.net for his early assessment, Lawson said: “I think it’s exceptional, to be honest. Obviously, we had some issues from Melbourne and unfortunately for Red Bull, they had a car drop out as well, but with new regulations, I think it’s not expected, but more understanding.

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“As frustrating as it is for all of us, from where we were a year ago, we weren’t hearing amazing things and weren’t super-confident about it, and now we have quite a strong engine. For us, it really helped us in Melbourne. It’s extremely positive.

“We’re continuing to learn and find more performance, which is the goal through the season, but I think they’ve done a very, very good job.”

How Red Bull Ford can catch up to Mercedes

Both Racing Bulls and Red Bull have featured at the front of the midfield this season, with both teams locked on 12 points in the constructors’ standings, just six behind last year’s champions, McLaren, who are third.

The Mercedes power unit has so far met pre-season expectations in being the class of the field, with the German manufacturer’s factory team heading the standings by some margin.

But catching up is not as simple as looking at where the Mercedes is strong and attempting to replicate this through set up tweaks.

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“We’re looking at everybody’s deployment methods,” said Lawson. “But on top of that, when you have very different cornering speeds, it’s very hard to compare as well, because depending on how much speed you carry through a corner, it depends on how much you are charging the battery.

“For us, there were a few corners in which we struggled, but it was actually giving us a bit of a boost down the straight because we were off throttle through the corners and charging a bit more. Sometimes, it’s not that simple to compare, because you have to be doing the exact same speed through the corners to try to deploy the same as somebody else. So it’s quite hard to compare.

“Obviously, we’re looking at what everybody is doing. We have to try to maximise our own deployment depending on what we are doing.”

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