Liam Lawson has addressed the scale of Formula 1\u2019s regulation changes, noting after his first day of track action in Barcelona that he still has not got his \u201chead around it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The New Zealander drove for the entirety of the opening day of the five-day test in Barcelona and gathered valuable data, despite causing a red flag before lunch as a safety precaution.<\/p>\n
It represented Racing Bulls\u2019 first official full day on track with its new car, having completed a shakedown at Imola ahead of the first 2026 pre-season test.<\/p>\n
For Lawson, it offered a chance to begin understanding how to operate all the new systems as part of the new power unit regulations, with DRS no longer featuring in F1.<\/p>\n
Understanding the new systems is a huge task for all drivers, although Lawson believes it has increased the difference a driver can make \u2014 something he views as a positive.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the 23-year-old completed 88 laps, gathering valuable information for Racing Bulls and Red Bull Powertrains.<\/p>\n
Asked how different the new car felt to the previous regulations, Lawson told F1TV: “Yeah, they\u2019re very, very different, and I definitely haven\u2019t got my head around it fully yet.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s something we\u2019ll keep learning over the next few days and weeks, when we go to Bahrain as well. But yeah, it\u2019s very, very different.<\/p>\n
“It feels like there\u2019s a lot more we can do as drivers, potentially, to make a difference, which is good.<\/p>\n
“But right now it\u2019s very early days, so it\u2019s very hard to know where we are. For now, we\u2019re just trying to learn how to optimise the car.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Lawson has addressed the scale of Formula 1\u2019s regulation changes, noting after his first day of track…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,42,3513,3516,3514,43,3512,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-256141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1-calendar","10":"tag-f1-live","11":"tag-f1-results","12":"tag-f1-standings","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-lewis-hamilton","17":"tag-max-verstappen","18":"tag-motorsport","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-racing","21":"tag-top-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topnews","24":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}