Solid opening day of testing for Red Bull Racing

Liam Lawson and Max Verstappen ran up more than 130 laps in the new Red Bull RB21 on Wednesday in the first day of pre-season testing.

The New Zealand racer took the morning session with his new team, completing 58 laps of the Bahrain International Circuit. Lawson suffered only a minor setback with a spin at Turn 3 midway through, before handing over the car to world champion Verstappen for the afternoon session, heading into the evening.

Racking up 74 laps, the Dutchman finished the opening day with the third fastest time of a 1:30.674, while Lawson’s quickest was 1:31.560, the eighth fastest.

“From the driving I did today everything felt good,” said Verstappen. “We don’t know pace yet but everything is working well and the car is doing what I want it to do. It is all in control and that is what we can hope for really to start of my testing.

“It is not about hitting the perfect lap but it is about working on our testing programme and learning what direction we need to push the car forwards to get it under control.”

On his first official run with the team, Lawson said: “I had so much fun out there today and it was so good to finally drive the new car properly and do some laps.

“It feels okay but obviously it is very early days, so it’s very much about learning at the moment. For me, there is a lot more to come because I need to learn a lot moving teams but from a team side we are just trying to learn about the new car, and optimise these testing days.

“It’s hard to tell where we are in terms of pace but the car feels good to drive and comfortable. Testing is just as important to me, as it is for the team to learn about the car.”

Testing continues on Thursday and Friday before the opening round on March 16 in Melbourne, Australia.