Liam Lawson hands Red Bull major boost after promising opening day

Liam Lawson has handed Red Bull a major boost following the opening day of the official shakedown test in Barcelona, revealing that its power unit felt "very good".

The New Zealander spent the entire opening day of the five-day test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya behind the wheel of Racing Bulls' VCARB 03.

Lawson clocked 132 laps across the day, with a best lap time of 1m 21.513, gathering valuable data for Red Bull's sister team.

The data was also useful for Red Bull itself, with Racing Bulls being powered this season by the Milton Keynes-based operation.

Unfortunately, the 23-year-old did cause a red flag towards the end of the morning session; however, he has insisted that the stoppage was purely a "safety precaution" rather than a problem with the car.

It is a season of great unknowns for Racing Bulls, given that it is being powered by Red Bull, which has no previous experience of being an F1 engine manufacturer.

Based on the opening day of running, though, it is so far, so good for both Racing Bulls and Red Bull's engine.

Asked how the Red Bull power unit felt, Lawson told F1TV: I mean, it feels good, honestly, so far today. But it's very hard to tell. So the main thing is reliability. 

"At the moment, we've done a good amount of laps today, only a few little things [went wrong]. And honestly, the only issues we really had today were safety precautions, not really any actual issues. 

"So yeah, so far, honestly, on the power unit side, has been very, very good. But again, hard to know compared to everybody else where we're at, but definitely we'll keep learning over the next few days."