Liam Lawson isn’t buying the early-season hype around Racing Bulls. Yes, the team has come out of the 2026 rule change in better shape than plenty expected — and with points in each of the first three events it’s done more than simply “survive” the reset. But Lawson’s read is that the grid you see now is a temporary snapshot, and the teams that turn this year into a development arms race will decide who stays relevant.
For Racing Bulls, that’s both the opportunity and the threat.
“The main thing is going to be on the development side for the teams,” Lawson said ahead of the next run of races. He’s not talking in vague motivational terms either. The New Zealander has felt the difference in what’s possible with these new cars compared to the tail end of the previous rules cycle.
Last year, he explained, upgrades were harder to make count. You’d arrive at a race with a package that might only be worth a few points of downforce — the kind of marginal gain that gets swallowed up by conditions, tyre behaviour or a slightly scruffy lap. This season is different. The regulations are immature, the concepts aren’t converged, and the scope for meaningful steps is back.
“This year, we’re expecting to bring much bigger things throughout the year,” Lawson said, “and the rate of that hopefully will be faster as well.”
That’s the crux: rate.
In the opening phase of a new rule set, the teams without a championship campaign to protect can sometimes be the most dangerous. You can push development direction harder, accept the odd dead end, and commit resources to the next set of parts without constantly calculating how it impacts a title fight. If you nail the early interpretation, you can buy yourself a competitive window — and Racing Bulls has clearly done that.
But keeping the window open is the real test, especially for a team operating on a smaller footprint than the factory-backed operations that traditionally gather momentum as the year settles. Racing Bulls has to get its calls right, and it has to do it repeatedly.
The next clues arrive quickly. The team is set to roll out aerodynamic upgrades at the Miami Grand Prix this weekend, with further changes planned for the Canadian Grand Prix later in the month. Team boss Alan Permane sounded upbeat about what’s coming.
“We’ve got some good stuff coming,” he said.
Permane’s confidence isn’t based on blind optimism. Racing Bulls has been methodically building its aerodynamic capability in Milton Keynes — including sharing Red Bull Racing’s wind tunnel — while still basing its car build and day-to-day operations out of Faenza. It’s an unusual split, but one the team has leaned into: a small team trying to behave like a bigger one, without pretending it has bigger-team money.
What’s made eyebrows rise in the paddock is how close Racing Bulls has been to the senior Red Bull outfit at times. Even with the obvious caveat that it’s early in a new era and the order can yo-yo, it’s still a notable marker — and not a flattering one for Red Bull Racing, which has looked more exposed than many anticipated under the 2026 rules.
The midfield picture is where Racing Bulls is trying to live, at least for now. Permane framed it as a tight group, and he’s already thinking in terms of upgrade cadence rather than single “big bang” packages.
“There’ll be small steps almost every race, I would say, and then another two or three large upgrades already planned,” he said. “Beyond that, so up to the shutdown, we’ve got a plan.”
He’s also clear-eyed about the ceiling. Staying in touch with the leading trio — Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren — is one thing. Making “inroads to the top guys” is another.
“To make inroads to the top guys, I’m not sure that’s going to be so easy,” Permane admitted. “Certainly, fighting for podiums looks like it would be tough this year, but let’s see what we can do.”
That sense of restraint matters, because Racing Bulls’ current position risks being misread as a new normal. Right now the team sits just four points shy of fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, a spot held by Haas. It’s a healthy place to be after three races — and a reminder of how volatile the opening months of a regulation cycle can be.
Permane’s benchmark group includes Alpine, Haas and Audi, and it’s not hard to see why he fancies Racing Bulls’ chances of staying in that fight. Rivals have their own adaptation pains and their own timelines, and Racing Bulls isn’t the only outfit coming to terms with new hardware and new operational demands. Racing Bulls itself is also working through a new power unit, while managing the realities of a team split between the UK and Italy.
From Lawson’s side of the garage, the mission is straightforward: keep the team moving. In a season where the cars are evolving quickly, drivers can’t simply wait for the next upgrade and hope it fixes everything. They have to help define direction — what traits are worth chasing, what compromises are acceptable, and which problems are structural rather than set-up noise.
Last year, Lawson and Isack Hadjar helped haul Racing Bulls to sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, matching the team’s best-ever result. That kind of overachievement doesn’t happen by accident, and 2026 is shaping up as the sort of season where overachievers can be rewarded again — but only if they keep landing punches.
Miami and Canada will tell us whether Racing Bulls has genuine momentum, or whether it’s simply riding the early turbulence of a new era. Either way, Lawson’s message is the right one: the grid won’t wait, and the teams that treat development speed as the main championship will be the ones still smiling when the year stops being new.
