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Karun Chandhok feels Racing Bulls star Liam Lawson being able to match the lap times of Max Verstappen in practice at the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix shows Red Bull’s woe.
Verstappen finished Friday at Suzuka as the quickest Red Bull family driver, but the four-time champion could only secure P10 in FP2 as McLaren’s Oscar Piastri set the pace. Verstappen was also 1.376 seconds off the pace that Piastri set to top the timesheet with a 1:30.133 lap.
Lawson ultimately finished FP2 in P12 as the top Racing Bulls racer, after he recorded a best time of 1:31.590 to trail Piastri’s pace by 1.457s. Red Bull ace Isack Hadjar only set the 15th-best time, while Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad failed to set a time after a gearbox issue.
The large deficits that Red Bull and Racing Bulls both faced as McLaren’s Piastri set the pace in FP2 at the Japanese GP continued a frustrating Friday for the two teams. Verstappen and Lawson also led their respective teams’ efforts in FP1, but only ranked in P7 and P8, as well.
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Liam Lawson’s fastest FP2 lap in Japan being 0.081s slower than Max Verstappen’s shows Red Bull’s issues
Verstappen struggled with understeer throughout FP2 at the Japanese GP, with the 28-year-old often fighting to force his Red Bull RB22 to corner how he wanted without locking up or making a mistake. Yet Chandhok feels Lawson’s pace hammered home Red Bull’s problems.
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Lawson’s qualifying simulation run in the Racing Bulls VCARB 03 resulting in a lap time only 0.081s slower than Verstappen’s best effort shows Chandhok just how much Red Bull need to improve the RB22, as the junior team should not be able to compete with the top team.
Chandhok said on Sky Sports F1 (27/03, 06:35): “That’s what it looked like from trackside. The Red Bull, it just looked like he was chasing the front end, just having to wait, and wait, and wait. And we know Max, of any driver on the grid, that’s a balance that he really dislikes.
“The fact [that] he’s still three-tenths ahead of Isack Hadjar suggests that the car is not there. Lawson in the Racing Bulls, with all due respect to them, should not be within eight-hundredths of Max Verstappen in the top Red Bull car. So, that is not a happy camp.”
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Practice at the Japanese GP this Friday saw a continuation of Racing Bulls drivers being able to challenge their partners at Red Bull. Lawson is keen to stop making mistakes in qualifying after he showed in China last time out that he can frustrate Red Bull during race conditions.
Lawson finished P7 in the Shanghai Sprint, while Verstappen only managed P9, and he held Hadjar off for P8 in the Chinese Grand Prix with a 6.659s margin between them. So, being a close match for Verstappen in FP2 in Japan could now inspire Lawson to rival Red Bull again.
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