Lawson reflects on Red Bull's simulation problem: 'You can only see it on track'

Lawson did not have the best of starts to his time at Red Bull Racing, and after two weekends, he was replaced by Yuki Tsunoda.

"I always said the operating window is probably bigger in this car than it is in the Red Bull," the New Zealander began in the paddock in Jeddah, reflecting on the difference between the two cars

“That maybe sweet spot is quite hard [to find], but that also comes from the driving as well as the setup. Trying to put a lot together in that car is a little bit more tricky just with how the car responds. But otherwise, being different cars, they just drive differently as well, and they require slightly different driving, techniques,” Lawson continued.

The New Zealander also saw how difficult Red Bull Racing had it last week in Bahrain. He himself drove at the same circuit during the test days in the RB21, so he can probably put his finger on what the problem was during the Grand Prix.

Red Bull had a difficult weekend in Bahrain. Lawson drove the RB21 during pre-season testing at the circuit, and explained those sessions were already difficult.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner also indicated last weekend that a big issues was the fact that the data obtained in the simulator did not match the car's eventual performance on track.

Lawson has an idea why that's the case. "To be honest, it feels like a little bit of a tricky year with tyres, with setup," he began answering GPblog's question.

He continued: "I think warm up, we've had very different conditions. We went from Japan being very cold to Bahrain being very hot. And when you're trying to build a tyre up in the perfect way, that's a completely unique thing to work on and you can't really simulate that in a simulator."

"You're faced with a lot more real life conditions that you're not going to simulate and I think this year that stuff that we maybe don't simulate has been more of a challenge than in past years. The car setup itself, we can simulate that and I think we have that in a pretty good place but it's really those other stuff that sometimes you can't actually really work on that can be quite difficult," the New Zealander concluded.