2026 Formula One cars are not ‘super fun’ to drive, says Lawson ahead of season opener Australian GP

New Zealand driver Liam Lawson is looking forward to the start of the new Formula 1 season in Melbourne this weekend, although he says the new-era cars are not ‘super fun’ to drive.

Lawson is hoping to build on a troubled 2025 season in which he lasted only two races with Red Bull before being demoted to the sister Racing Bulls team.

He had mixed results and was outshone by his teammate Isack Hadjar who has now joined Max Verstappen at Red Bull. Lawson was the last driver to have his place on the 2026 grid confirmed and has been joined at Racing Bulls by rookie Arvid Lindblad.

In a New Zealand radio interview Tuesday, Lawson said new regulations which have brought in hybrid power units and different aero setups have been ‘challenging.’

“In some ways the car moves around quite a bit more and, it depends on how you look at it, that can be more enjoyable,” he said. “But obviously we’re trying to extract every bit of lap time out of the car and in some ways it feels like you can’t attack as much as you could in the past when you had a lot more downforce.”

Lawson said 2026 cars and noticeably smaller and “a little bit more playful” to drive.

“But I think the main reason for that is just because we have a significant amount of aero taken off the car,” Lawson said. “When you have a car that’s extremely high downforce, it’s designed to push through the air in a straight line.”

Racing Bulls will be using new Red Bull-Ford power units in 2026 and Lawson said his team had been pleased with their reliability. He said reliability would be a key issue early in the season.

Lawson has learned a lot from last season, despite its challenges.

“I’m grateful to have done that and feel a lot better going into this year but just because of new cars and new regulations it sort of throws a whole new thing in there that is quite unknown,” he said.

“On a personal level, I feel very comfortable and excited for the season, but, in a lot of ways obviously with these new cars, there’s a lot of unknowns.”

The Australian Grand Prix on the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne will open the 2026 season on Sunday.

Cadillac make debut at Australian GP: The Andretti family dream to enter an American team in Formula 1 will finally reach the starting grid when the season begins this weekend with the Australian Grand Prix.

Everything about the team will look different than what Michael Andretti had envisioned. In fact, he’s not even part of the project that after nearly five years has at last come to life.

Instead, Cadillac F1 is now the property of TWG Motorsports - led by Mark Walter and Dan Towriss - and General Motors.

Along with General Motors, this group has taken a long-winding project to get to the starting grid on Sunday in Australia extremely serious.

When F1 initially denied the application, they pressed on and continued working on a car and engine even without approval to join the globetrotting series considered the most popular form of motorsports in the world. “Work continues at pace,” they all said as they worked behind the scenes to gain approval.

It was stamped official exactly one year from Sunday’s season-opening race.

The team has hired Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez of Mexico and Valtteri Bottas as the veteran drivers to build the program. It doesn’t hurt that both are extremely popular - Perez is a national hero in Mexico - and General Motors happens to sell many, many cars in that country.

“We ran into a lot of obstacles, a lot of voices telling us not just ‘no,’ but ‘never,’” said Towriss about the team’s fight to the grid. “Formula 1 is innovation on the biggest stage possible, and the US didn’t really have a seat at that table. To now come in with General Motors and the Cadillac brand, that’s something we’re tremendously proud of.”

Agencies