Painful long run data puts Verstappen and Red Bull behind midfield team

After the second free practice in Japan, Verstappen said that Red Bull still has a few problems they don’t understand. It looks like it’s going to be a long night for the Austrian team, which must pull out all the stops to improve the situation for qualifying day at Suzuka. The Dutchman complained about the balance and had understeer.

Things clearly went better for the competition. Although Mercedes didn’t top the FP2 timesheets, their long runs once again looked strong and consistent. Oscar Piastri finished the day as the fastest man, but he is not the quickest driver in the long runs. As usual, analyzing long runs is somewhat guesswork, since it’s not known how much fuel or which engine modes the drivers were using.

In addition, the teams clearly had different run plans. Red Bull chose to send both drivers out on the hard tyre for a longer race simulation, while George Russell and Kimi Antonelli did their long runs on the mediums. Ferrari and McLaren also opted for long runs on the yellow Pirellis.

It stands out that Verstappen’s long run is the longest of the seven drivers in the table. His stint average was 1:36.456, about four tenths faster than teammate Isack Hadjar, but more than a second slower than Russell and Antonelli — who were running on the medium tyre. The top teams did their long runs around the same time in the session, so under comparable conditions.

Despite his speed on the softs and over a qualifying run, Piastri still came up about nine tenths short of Russell in the long run. Teammate Lando Norris had car issues and could only hit the track after thirty minutes. As a result, the Briton didn’t get to any long runs and will have to try to find a rhythm on Saturday morning.

Ferrari currently seems to be the second-best team, but their runs clearly weren’t flawless. Lewis Hamilton had a few spikes and couldn’t really put together a consistent long run, bringing his average to 1:36.013, four tenths faster than Verstappen. Leclerc was slightly more consistent and averaged 1:35.442.

Since Red Bull was the only one of the top four to do long runs on the hards, we looked for other drivers outside the top four who also ran the hard tyre: Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg. Gasly did that long run at roughly the same time as the two Red Bulls, while Hulkenberg ran the hard tyre slightly earlier in the session and switched to softs for his final stint.

Verstappen is faster than Hülkenberg in the Audi, but Gasly's average is around two tenths quicker It’s clear that Red Bull cannot currently compete at the front with Mercedes and Ferrari. It will be interesting to see how McLaren continues in Japan, and whether Red Bull can still make a step forward.