Liam Lawson laughs off Toto Wolff’s ‘second a lap’ Red Bull engine claim

Liam Lawson has scoffed at Toto Wolff’s claim that the Red Bull Powertrains engine has “a second a lap” on its rivals.

As a new era begins in Formula 1, with new cars and engines, Red Bull has taken on the challenge of designing its own engine for the first time in the team’s history. The PU will also power its sister team, Racing Bulls.

Liam Lawson: “We’ll find out pretty soon”

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And according to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, the RBPT engine is the one to beat.

“Well, I was hoping that they were worse than they are,” the Mercedes team principal told assembled media, including PlanetF1.com, in Bahrain on Wednesday. “They’ve done a very good job.

“The car, the power unit are the benchmark at the moment, I would say.”

“Look at their energy deployment today,” he added. “They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else.

“I mean, we are speaking a second a lap over consecutive laps.”

Lawson was asked about that in Bahrain, the New Zealander all but scoffing at Wolff’s claim amidst some laughter.

He, though, didn’t deny that it could be a possibility.

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“One second faster than everybody? Who said that?” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com, in Bahrain.

With a laugh, he continued: “Oh my God.”

He continued: “We’ll find out, obviously.

“At the moment, honestly the power units working very, very well. Which is good.

“But in terms of performance numbers, it is so hard to tell, because we have no idea what anybody else is doing.

“So yeah, I think on the performance side, we definitely think it’s strong. I wouldn’t say it’s one second faster than everybody.

“But we’ll find out pretty soon. So yeah, all okay so far.”

Watching the cars on track throughout the Bahrain test, PlanetF1.com editor Mat Coch noted they seemed far more nervous, harder to brake and were getting away from the drivers under acceleration.

He put that to Lawson.

“Yeah, it’s pretty tough to drive,” replied the Kiwi. “Especially here we have a lot of tyre deg so there’s a lot more sliding going on this year, and it is quite tricky to drive.

“So yeah, at the moment, I would say there’s a lot learning at the moment trying to optimise driving this car between short runs and qualifying with the battery management and the long runs as well. It’s a learning curve.”

He later added: “The loss of downforce is probably the main one. Yes, you’re a lot busier, but that stuff, again, as we spend more time driving, it will start to come naturally. Right now, it’s mainly just the downforce that’s making it harder to drive.

“I think naturally when you’re sliding in the corner as well you’re going to have, you’re going to have more tyre deg as well.”

However, tyre deg isn’t the only issue facing the drivers with this year’s cars and their power units. Race starts could also be more tricky.

“It’s more difficult, definitely, to get off the line than last year. But again, it’s something that I’m sure, as we progress through the season, will be figuring out things to help that,” he said.

“Comparing to a five-year-developed car versus a brand new car is always going to be things that are new and different. So yeah, I’m sure we’ll learn and get better.”

Additional reporting by Mat Coch

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