Lawson smashes it with Carlin

Red Bull Junior Liam Lawson produced an eye-opening performance to top last week’s three-day pre-season FIA Formula 2 test in Bahrain with Carlin.

The New Zealander, who competed with Hitech GP in his rookie F2 season last year, topped Thursday afternoon’s session by a clear 0.473 seconds. This was the running in which most teams decided to equip their drivers with the two sets of option tyres allowed over the test for a qualifying simulation. Prema Racing, however, went against the grain and gave its drivers one set of soft Pirellis each on Wednesday afternoon. Jehan Daruvala (like Lawson a Red Bull Junior) went fastest in this session, and his time was eclipsed only by Lawson – albeit by 0.451s – across the remainder of the test.

A sandstorm put paid to the final session on Friday afternoon, but there was only a small handful of option tyres across the whole paddock left unused.

Carlin chief Trevor Carlin was happy with the progress of both Lawson and Logan Sargeant, who was the fastest F2 rookie. “The team’s gelled,” he said. “Liam and Logan have fitted in nicely and are getting on well. Liam is very confident, and he’s been working away quietly.

“Every session we had prior to the quali-type session, him and Logan were normally within 0.005s, but when it came to putting the softs on Liam stepped up and drove a perfect lap. I was pleased to see that, because everything has been going well and he was able to do it when it counts.”

Brits Jake Hughes and Olli Caldwell were 11th (with Van Amersfoort Racing) and

21st (Campos Racing) respectively.