Liam Lawson says Racing Bulls have had strong Barcelona F1 test in terms of reliability

Lawson kicked off Racing Bulls' running in Barcelona with 88 laps on Day 1 as his teammate Arvid Lindblad added around 120 to that tally on Wednesday.

“We just keep learning," he told F1 TV on Thursday before starting the afternoon run. “We are obviously making big gains, but so is everybody else.

"Very, very different cars but in a much better place than we were on Monday, which is the main thing.

“We just need to keep learning and improving the car," he added. “In terms of mileage, we have honestly had a pretty strong test in terms of reliability, so that’s been a box ticked.

“In terms of expectations, it’s very hard [to know], we don’t know where anybody else is," the Kiwi pointed out. "That will still be unknown for a while, but the main thing is we’re getting the laps down that we want to and learning what we need to about our car.”

Part of the reliability enjoyed by Racing Bulls was the solid power unit Red Bull has delivered through their Red Bull Ford Powertrains division.

Lindblad, after his impressive run on Wednesday hailed the first F1 power unit to be produced at Milton Keynes.

He said: “Obviously there are a few things to improve, but it’s been really impressive for the main part.

"There hasn’t really been any reliability problems. The issues I’m talking about are relatively small. There are things that can be improved, but they are much better than I was expecting.

"So massive credit to everyone at RBPT [Red Bull Powertrains] and Ford for putting it together and getting to this point," the Racing Bulls rookie concluded.