Marko unhappy with Red Bull Friday: "We are not running at our best"

Helmut Marko is unhappy with Red Bull Racing's performance after the second free practice session at Silverstone. The Red Bull adviser said his team struggled to find the right balance and that is why Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez 'did not perform optimally' on Friday.

The set-up was not right, the balance was not right and Marko said the RB18 was suffering from both oversteer and understeer. In addition, the Red Bull drivers could not find grip in the slow corners. All of this leads the Austrian to a clear conclusion: "We are not running optimally", he said according to Motorsport-Magazin.com. Nevertheless Marko hopes to close the gap to Ferrari with a better set-up on Saturday, because Verstappen was not far off the time of Carlos Sainz in FP2.

Marko unhappy with Friday

Performance was only part of Red Bull Racing's problems on Friday, however, as both Verstappen and Perez reported 'strange noises' from their cars. This was traced to the floor, of which Verstappen was to drive an updated version. Whether the cause is the same with Perez remains to be seen, as it was initially assumed that the Mexican had not yet been fitted with the same update as his teammate.

"It came from the bodywork, something hit it," Marko surmises. He won't confirm if the problem was related to the latest update Red Bull brought to Silverstone, but he assures there is nothing serious going on. As Verstappen reported, the team knows what to do and the mechanics will be working hard tonight.