Two completely different stories at Racing Bulls in the first GP of the 2026 season in Melbourne, where the young rookie Arvid Lindblad impressed the most. Eighth at the finish line at the end of a race in which he showed all his grit, reaching the point of defending himself on several occasions from the attacks of a four-time world champion like Max Verstappen (with the Dutchman not at all pleased with a brake-test that occurred at the pit lane entry), the Briton scored his first points.
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One step away from disaster
The next Grand Prix in China will instead be the first opportunity for Liam Lawson to forget what happened in Australia. At the start, the New Zealander effectively remained stationary on the grid, with Colapinto’s incredible reflex dodging the car at the last moment, thus avoiding a dangerous collision at the start: “Honestly I have no idea what happened at the start – Lawson commented to the media – the lights went out very quickly, but I thought I had nailed the reaction and the procedure, but I don’t know. We need to review it, but the car didn’t move, it lost all power and I couldn’t increase power for another five seconds. I just sat there, stationary, so it’s quite frustrating.”
Not just the start
13° under the checkered flag, Lawson complained about other problems encountered during the GP: “I think the pace of the car was good, but every time I found myself behind a car our energy management wasn’t working correctly and I kept losing power – he continued – obviously it was a big learning curve for all of us today with these cars, but we thought about some issues during the race.”
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